2014

Take a look at the 2014 calendar!

http://www.cohort.be/p/calendar.html

Besides -- Northern Cities - Matthew Shlomowitz

Matthew Shlomowitz - Northern Cities (German cities version)

Performed by Besides

ISCM World Music Days, Handelsbeurs, Gent, Belgium 30 October 2012

Nadar ensemble + Wafaa Bilal "Dead Serious"

"Dead Serious" - collaboration between Nadar Ensemble and Wafaa Bilal - 

premiere 5th of August 2014 
Georg Büchner Platz, Darmstadt - Internationale Ferienkurse Darmstadt. 

recensie de standaard - 'onderwater princess waltz' Zwerm

Zwerm te gast bij 'Vrije Geluiden'

Op 27 oktober was Zwerm te gast bij het Nederlandse programma 'Vrije Geluiden'.

Herbekijk de aflevering: hier

Zou de Engelse componist, zanger en luitist John Dowland (1563 – 1626) hebben gekozen voor een elektrische gitaar voor zijn composities?

De gitaargroep Zwerm denkt van wel en begint de komende week met de repetities voor dit project. Zondag speelt Zwerm werk van hun net verschenen album 'Underwater Princess Waltz’. Hierop staan uitsluitend one page pieces, een compositievorm die opkwam in de jaren ’60 van de vorige eeuw.

Deze stukken – die één pagina beslaan - drukken in sommige gevallen slechts een muzikaal idee uit, in andere gevallen geeft de componist preciezere aanwijzingen. Johannes Westendorp vertelt over hoe de groep een wiskundig raadsel over een boer en witte en rode koeien omzette in een Delta bluesachtige compositie..

Nadar - EXIT F (M. Maierhof)

A wonderful short film by Kobe Wens on the production of Michael Maierhofs EXIT F, with Nadar and 4 hot-air balloons.

Zwerm te gast bij musiq3

UNDERWATER PRINCESS WALTZ

De nieuwe CD van ZWERM: Toon Callier te gast bij Big Bang op Musiq3!
Herbeluister hier de anderhalf uur durende reportage. 

cd presentation 'underwater princess waltz' - ZWERM

October 19th - 20h00

deSingel - Muziekstudio
Desguinlei 25, 2018 Antwerpen

The name says it all: One Page Pieces are compositions of just one page. Sometimes, they express a simple musical idea, sometimes they turn out to be complex structures with copious directions for the performer. Alvin Curran and James Tenney were the first composers to work in this genre in the 1960s. It wasn't long before their clever sketches also inspired others - including Christian Wolff, Larry Polansky, Joel Ford and Earl Brown. A new American music style was born. As One Page Pieces can be humorous, conceptual, politically engaged or folksy, they demand a strong empathy from their performers. 

This is exactly the strength of the Belgian-Dutch electrical guitar quartet Zwerm. For this CD launch concert, the four musicians have selected their favourite One Page Pieces from the musical canon. They thus illustrate how they can put a wide range of contemporary music in the spotlight with the ultimate low-culture instrument. With the guitar in the leading role, this concert transports you through previously undiscovered sounds and spheres.

More info: deSingel

besides & ensemble offspring @ concertgebouw brugge

October 13th - 16h30

DOUBLE BILL
Concertgebouw Brugge, 't Zand 34, 8000 Brugge

A double bill, featuring a Belgian and an Australian ensemble, who bring us contemporary chamber music with a humorous and nonsensical twist in a nonstandard line-up. The chosen works have a clear link with the everyday, with a familiarity that borders on banality. In most cases, they even touch upon the beauty of the commonly overlooked. That unexpected beauty is brought to the fore by a layer of irony or parody. Established names, such as John Zorn, Larry Polansky and Matthew Shlomowitz, and their younger but equally intriguing colleagues, like Simon Steen-Andersen, François Sarhan and Alexander Schubert, sweep the familiar musical ground from under our feet. In short: a unique listening experience, courtesy of the innovative young vanguard of the latest classical music.

More info: concertgebouw

Nadar ensemble happening @ concertgebouw brugge

september 29th 14h00

Nadar ensemble happening
Concertgebouw Brugge, 't Zand 34, 8000 Brugge

FURRER and FURTHER

A land of mountains and castles, but especially of music. The Nadar Ensemble prove that Austria – and especially Vienna – is simply brimming with musical energy. Young and less young lions - such as Matthias Kranebitter, Beat Furrer, Bernhard Lang, Eva Reiter, Peter Ablinger and Jorge Sánchez-Chiong - are rapidly developing new forms of expression. They know and respect traditions, but they are not afraid to experiment. The equally eager young lions of the Nadar Ensemble have had intensive collaborations with all of those composers. They indulge themselves to their heart's content in the most diverse compositions: from piano solo, to bass clarinet and turntables, to large ensemble works. The use of electronics and video makes a Nadar Ensemble concert an exceptionally (a)live event: the vibrant pulse of new Viennese music pounding through Flemish veins. Live music, electronics, video, small and large line ups: this happening is one big sound fest!

14h00 Aria
Lecture-performance
by Beat Furrer & Nadar Ensemble

Beat Furrer (1954)
Aria
Voicelessness. (The Snow Has No Voice)

15h20 CONCERT 1

Matthias Kranebitter (1980)
Ringelreigen 116,9g CO2

Martin Arnold (1959)
Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy, video

Bernhard Lang (1957)
The watchtower (Bob Dylan)
Burning sister (amon düül 2) from DW 16: Songbook 1

16h00 INTERVIEW WITH BEAT FURRER AND GUESTS

17h00  CONCERT 2

Beat Furrer
Invokation VI

Abbas Kiarostami (1940)
The Chorus, video

Peter Ablinger (1959)
Voices and piano, selection

17h45 CONCERT 3

Matthias Kranebitter
Top 10 – Lieder (Form als Neurose)

Eva Reiter (1976)
Alle verbindungen gelden nur jetzt

Jorge Sánchez-Chiong (1969)
Used Redux

More info: concertgebouw

aton'&armide @ festival de Wallonie

29 septembre - 15h00

Festival de Wallonie
Château de La Hulpe, Chaussée de Bruxelles 111, 1310 La Hulpe

Quoi de plus romantique que l’amour que portait Robert Schumann pour Clara Wieck, raconté en musique lors de deux concerts dans l’intimité du salon du Château de La Hulpe. LEnsemble Aton’& Armide partagent leur vision d’un amour, d’une époque et d’un compositeur.

Plus d'info: Festival de Wallonie

Nadar @ Ultima Festival

september 10th - 21h00

Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival

Kulturkirken Jacob, Hausmanns gate 14, 0182 Oslo

In InterAct! Nadar focus on how composers nowadays are dealing with society and how they reflect on themes like interactivity, the conflict between reality and virtual reality and developments in technology. Composers who are looking for new directions in art and who are influenced at the same by free jazz, free impro and techno but also todays politics, televisionseries and Lowell Paxson, founding father of home shopping…

With works by Ignas Krunglevicius, Alexander Schubert, JSX, Matthias Kranebitter and Stefan Prins.

More info: Ultima

'study for string instrument #3' Simon Steen-Andersen by Nadar

Nadar ensemble: Pieter Matthynssens (cello)
Simon Steen-Andersen  -  'Study for String Instrument #3'
Mainz Musik - 29/06/2013

Zwerm - Recording 'One Page Pieces'

'exit to enter' - Michael Beil by Nadar

Proud to present you the video of the world première of Michael Beil’s Exit to Enter. Michael wrote this piece especially for Nadar for the Acht Bruecken Festival Köln. Nadar would like to thank Michael for writing this wonderful piece and also director Thierry Bruhl for the very nice collaboration.

Nadar ensemble
Michael Beil - 'exit to enter'
Acht Brücken Festival - 03/05/2013

De Standaard over What's Next

Nadar - generation kill (Stefan Prins)

"Nothing made a deeper impression than 'Generation Kill', an explosive synthesis of live and electronic sound by Belgian composer Stefan Prins. In a program note, Prins reported that he had been pondering intersections of technology and global conflict: American soldiers in Iraq revving themselves up with video games, Arab Spring insurgents communicating via Facebook, drones operated by remote control. Rather than pasting such portentous themes onto the surface of a work, Prins found a way to embody them organically. Four members of the Nadar Ensemble, playing violin, cello, electric guitar, and percussion, were postioned behind transparant screens; facing them were four performers with PlayStation video-game controllers. These devices allowed for the recording, replay, and manipulation not only of sounds but also of images: the players had to compete with superimposed, sometimes sped-up video projections of what they had been doing moments before.

The result was mind-bending, and not in druggy, blissed-out way. As the composer intended, it was disturbingly difficult to tell what was real and what was virtual. The musicians were caught in temporal loops, as if Philip K. Dick had written a novel about chamber music. Instrumental timbres were distorted in the direction of glitchy noise, in the manner of much recent European music, but the extension of playing techniques achieved a kind of visceral precision. The cellist executed several abrasive cadenzas with a crushed beer can stuck between the strings, and the violinist applied aluminum foil to the bridge of her instrument. There was a desert harshness to the sound, in keeping with the Middle Eastern focus. Twice, Prins halted all musical activity to make that focus clear: we heard crackling radio voices discussing "collateral damage", and saw inhabitants of a nameless town running from a Predator drone.

This display of spastic near-genius was, to my puzzlement, one of the works that drew a cry of "Boring!" I wanted to ask the protestor what would have held his interest. Music for amplified lobby toilets? A piece in which an orchestra gets drunk on Fürstenberg beer and trashed everything in sight? Next Year, perhaps."

Alex Ross ("Blunt Instruments. Young European Composers go to Extremes in Donaueschingen", The New Yorker, Nov 12, 2012, www.newyorker.com)

What's Next 2013

What’s Next Festival 24/03/2013

La Raffinerie - Bruxelles (de 16h à …)

Festival de musique actuelle - Aktuele muziek festival

avec entre autres/met onder meer Decoder Ensemble (D), Soundinitiative (Fr), Hans Beckers, Johannes Westendorp & Pieter Verhees (NL), Elisa Medinilla, Tip Toe Company et un projet de LAbO de ChampdAction ! 

TICKETS: www.arsmusica.be/2013/dut/tickets/

What’s Next en coproduction avec/in coproductie met Ars Musica & Charleroi Danses, met de steun van Vlaamse Overheid en van de Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie. En collaboration avec/ in samenwerking met Cohort

http://www.whats-next.be/ // deviens fan sur: http://www.facebook.com/whatsnextfestival

ICTUS ZONE 5

march 21st 21h30

Ictus Zone: Aton' & Armide feat. Ictus oboist Piet Van Bockstal
Bozar/Ter Arken

Ictus Zone #5 featuring in this concert Aton' & Armide and the oboist Piet Van Bockstal. At the heart of this evening's programme is a cult work, Demijour, by the German composer Nikolaus A Huber, who was trained by Stockhausen and Nono, among others. This well-known work is a reinterpretation of Schumann's Zwielicht in a late-20th-century musical idiom.

Thomas Smetryns, Three ways to drift apart**

Karlheinz Stockhausen, Xi

Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Trois chants pour mieux voir - en dedans (N°3)**

Nikolaus Huber Statement zu einem Faustschlag Nonos, Demijour

** WORLD PREMIERE

ATON' & ARMIDE

Sara Picavet piano, Benjamin Glorieux cello

& Piet Van Bockstal oboe

More info: Bozar

What's Next 2013

Interview pour What's Next ce lundi soir, 22h, dans l'émission Big Bang sur Musiq'3.
Interview over What's Next deze maandag 22u voor de uitzending Big Bang op Musiq'3.

http://www.rtbf.be/radio/liveradio/musiq3
http://www.rtbf.be/musiq3/

ICTUS ZONE 4

february 21st 20h00

Ictus Zone: Mangalam!
Bozar / terarken



Ictus presents the adventurous Ictus Zone, featuring in this concert the Mangalam! Trio. This concert series (whose watchword is "constructive provocation") presents a new generation of musicians and ensembles active in contemporary music. Jean-Luc Plouvier, artistic coordinator Ictus, will provide a commentary on the concert, whose programme includes work by Philippe Hurel and by one of his pupils, Christophe Bertrand, who, sadly, died far too young.

Philippe Hurel, Step (2007) for flute, clarinet, percussion and piano

Christophe Bertrand, Virya (2003-2004) for flute, clarinet, percussion and piano

MANGALAM!

Charlotte Otte piano, Anne Davids flute, Tomonori Takeda clarinet, Thomas Plessers percussion 

More info: Bozar

Park @ deSingel

January 25th - 20h00

PARK by Shila Anaraki
based on a composition of Stefan Prins
a Zwerm production
deSingel - theaterstudio

Think of a body in stand-by, a short-circuited thought, a human brain processing at a frequency of 5 GHz...

In PARK, six computers form a communication network that provides six performers with real- time instructions. PARK confronts the human body with a digital logic. It plays on the border between human presence and absence in technology and embodies a puzzle in which this presence and absence outline each other. With playful precision we investigate strategies for embracing, resisting, adapting, disrupting or short- circuiting these technical surroundings. Who infiltrates what, and what infiltrates whom? PARK inhabits a peculiar network, which sputters, crackles and flickers. 

For PARK, Stefan Prins asked Shila Anaraki to create a performance based on his compostion Infiltrationen, for 4 electric guitars and a live-electronics performer. Central to his composition is the notion of technology infiltrating the conditio humana on several levels. 

created by SHILA ANARAKI
based on a composition of STEFAN PRINS
developed in dialogue with ADVA ZAKAI
music: STEFAN PRINS, ZWERM
realised and performed by: SHILA ANARAKI, STEFAN PRINS & ZWERM (TOON CALLIER, BRUNO NELISSEN, KOBE VAN CAUWENBERGHE, JOHANNES WESTENDORP)
scenography & light: SIMON SIEGMANN
dramaturgical advice: LARS KWAKKENBOS

sound: ROEL DAS (ChampdAction)



a Zwerm production // co-production: Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt // deSingel // ChampdAction // Workspace Brussels // supported by wpZimmer // Pianofabriek kunstenwerkplaats // Cohort // with the support of the Flemish Government

more info - tickets

Ictus Zone 3

January 17th 20h00

Ictus Zone: Ictus & Besides

Bozar/studio

Ictus & Besides with works by John Cage, François Sarhan, Henry Cowell, Newton Armstrong and Jasper & Jasper at Bozar, down in the cellar (Studio). All what you can do with four musicians, their instruments, their voices, a cactus, ikea salad bowls and yes a max patch too.

François Sarhan, Situation 7, Imagination for two voices

Henry Cowell, The Banshee for piano
John Cage Child for Tree for amplified cactus and other vegetable material, Six Melodies (I, II, III), for violin and Fender Rhodes, Six Melodies (IV, V, VI), for violin and piano
Jasper&Jasper, Together for narrator, sound bowl and electronics
Newton Armstrong, Making One Leaf Transparent and Then Another, for piano and electronics

ICTUS ENSEMBLE

George Van Dam violin, Jean-Luc Fafchamps piano

ENSEMBLE BESIDES

Fabian Coomans piano, Jasper Braet electronics

More info: Bozar