A bassoon, a piano and an interactive ensemble of musicians and dancers guided an audience through a night’s sleep in a transmedia performance Saturday night at Katzin Concert Hall on the Tempe campus.

Joseph Kluesener, a doctoral student in the School of Music, produced and starred in the recital with his bassoon, accompanied by Evan Paul on the grand piano.

The show was a collaboration between the visual arts, the School of Music and the School of Dance, Kluesener said.

Saturday’s performance began with Kluesener and Paul walking onto stage in pajamas and lying down to sleep, as musicians and dancers rose from their seats among the audience members and began performing free improvisation in the aisles before exiting the hall.

Free improvisation is an avant-garde style of music developed in the mid- to late-1960s in which there is no rehearsed or planned song.

This style is “extremely unusual” for woodwinds, especially at ASU, Kluesener said.

Once all the extra performers cleared the hall, Kluesener and Paul reappeared wearing suits and proceeded to play four written pieces of music representing the stages of sleep and dreams.

The transformation from the impromptu ensemble performance to the rehearsed written music symbolized falling asleep and entering a dreamland, Kluesener said.

After intermission, the show took a theatrical turn.

Kluesener returned to the stage, clad in pajamas, playing off-sounding notes on his bassoon, apparently suffering from a case of middle-of-the-night indigestion.

After mock-guzzling from a bottle of Pepto Bismol, Kluesener dove directly into an adventurous piece by Anne LeBaron, an acclaimed contemporary composer renowned as a pioneer of innovation and improvisation.

The show ended with another free improvisation performance by the musicians and dancers in the audience before an alarm clock sounded, taking the audience back to reality.

“I wanted it to be entertaining, interesting and surprising,” Kluesener said. “That’s what art is all about —creating reactions.”

His efforts were greeted by a standing ovation from the audience.

“It was a creative, engaging and involved experience that the audience enjoyed and appreciated,” said Michael Burns, a music education and bassoon performance senior.

In keeping with the cutting-edge style of the show, the concert was accessible to viewers abroad or otherwise unable to attend via Web cam at Ustream.tv.

Kluesener, who has played the bassoon since seventh grade, graduated from the University of Cincinnati with bachelor’s degrees in bassoon performance and music education.

After completing his doctoral degree in performance, Kluesener hopes to be a collegiate music teacher.

Kluesener is interested in designing and choreographing concerts to make them more alluring than a regular woodwind performance.

He said he wants the audience to interact with and be challenged by the show, as opposed to just listening to music notes.

“I want to make Hollywood appeal for woodwind recitals,” he said.

Reach the reporter at melanie.kiser@asu.edu.