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Imagine being a musician. Then imagine being assigned a musical theme one afternoon and having to compose–over the next 24 hours–five minutes of original music that will be given to a band filled with some of the city’s best musicians who will then perform that piece in front of an audience 24 hours later.

Sound incredibly hard? It is! And you can witness it all at this year’s 14/48 BoomBox, slated for Saturday, April 2, at Columbia City’s The Royal Room. 

14/48 Projects, the group behind the pressure-packed, time-crunch 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater Festival, is focusing on music this time. (It’s setup is similar to the Seattle Rock Lottery in that it will allow the house band to rehearse just 30 minutes with each composer before playing the score for an early [8 p.m.] and late show [10:30 p.m.])

“The philosophy of the show is very much in line with the philosophy of 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theater,” says Michael Owcharuk, one of the composers and curator for the night. “Create real art, real fast with intensity, pressure and the spirit of camaraderie. We have invited composers from all over Seattle’s musical landscape.” 

“It’s a shotgun approach, an ‘immediate response’ sort of project,” says Beth Fleenor, another of the event’s composers who also plays in many musical projects including Crystal Beth. “I love this kind of event because it’s a big part of my process to commit to a time/space and make something specific to that moment and people involved.”

April will mark just the second incarnation of 14/48 BoomBox, but the theatrical version has been going on for years, including a “kamikaze” night where artists’ disciplines for the night are drawn out of a hat. 

“A few years back during the first 14/48: Kamikaze,” Owcharuk says, “there was a two-person play about Charles Bronson and his cat. The play opened with this full-grown man atop a 5-foot-tall cat tower. Halfway through, the cat mistakenly addressed ‘Charles Bronson’ and ‘Bruce Willis,’ which launched the two actors on a three-minute unplanned, improvised jaunt that made me cry it was so funny. After that, they picked up right where they left off in the script.” 

The process, Fleenor notes, works muscles that aren’t always worked in the longer-view creative process. “I think it’s a grand focusing agent for highly concentrated making,” she says. “You have to commit to yourself, dive deep in your voice and vision and then immediately open it up to others and discover more about it together.”

For more information and to buy tickets, visit 14/48 BoomBox’s Facebook page.