HYBRID SAX, a collaboration with Andrew Claes
Andrew Claes and the hybrid saxophone: where music and technology converge.
With his hybrid saxophone, Andrew Claes brings a revolutionary perspective to live music. This project combines traditional musical expression with advanced technology: a sensor system designed by Claes himself captures every movement and note on the saxophone. This data is converted in real time into a score for the Goeyvaerts String Trio and double bassist Pieter Lenaerts, while simultaneously controlling robots via a synthesizer. The result? A dynamic, interactive musical experience in which improvisation, algorithms, and live coding come together to create a unique soundscape.
The project is a continuation of Andrew’s Ph.D. research, which he presented at the KMSKA on December 21, 2023. For those interested in the technology behind this innovation, detailed building instructions are available on Instructables, a platform where creators share their creations. This makes it not only a concert, but also an open invitation to get started with the future of music yourself.
Pour Que les Fruits – Karel Goeyvaerts
Goeyvaerts String Trio: a lively dialogue between tradition and innovation
For almost 30 years, the Goeyvaerts String Trio has borne the name of Karel Goeyvaerts, one of the most visionary Belgian composers of the 20th century. Goeyvaerts was a pioneer in European new music after the Second World War, an artist who never allowed himself to be constrained by dogma or style. His work is characterized by a restless but homogeneous artistic journey, in which he constantly explored the boundaries of sound, time, and composition.
From rationalization to freedom
In the 1950s, Goeyvaerts experimented with serial composition and electronic sound generation, casting parameters such as pitch, duration, and dynamics into measurable sequences. This approach led to an almost binary way of composing, in which music was rationalized into a system of control. But where others saw a new path, Goeyvaerts experienced this as a restrictive straitjacket. After a period of artistic reflection, he made a radical turnaround: he embraced tonality, simplicity, and playfulness, without however breaking his ties with electronics and tape.
Modular music and collective creation
Goeyvaerts’ work from the 1970s, such as Pour Tcheng and Pour que les fruits mûrissent cet été, shows his fascination with modular structures and free interpretation. These compositions, with their repetitive patterns and room for improvisation, reflected the social changes of the time: anti-establishment, collectivity, and a rejection of the traditional, hierarchical conductor. Music became a collaborative process, in which performers were allowed to make their own choices.
A reworked masterpiece
Today, the Goeyvaerts String Trio presents a reworking of Pour que les fruits mûrissent cet été, a work that has hardly been performed since 1976. The original score was complex and uninviting, with seven musicians constantly having to make complicated choices. The trio has reworked the score into a clear, schematic model, inspired by the repetitive scores of American minimalists.
A striking addition is the modular synth, which generates four of the seven voices. This choice brings back the hypercontrol of Goeyvaerts’ early electronic period, but with a dynamic, unpredictable sound designed by Vincent Werbrouck. In addition, the iconic drone from the original is revived thanks to a specially built Goeyvaerts Organ—a collaboration with the sound design class at the Academie Beeld in Sint-Niklaas.
A synthesis of past and present
With this reworking, the Goeyvaerts String Trio aims to create a synthesis of Goeyvaerts’ musical legacy: the strict organization of his early work, the freedom and playfulness of his later period, and the modular approach that connects the two. The result is a heterogeneous sound world in which acoustic and electronic elements merge into a lively, compelling experience.
A tribute to a composer who never stopped searching—and an invitation to rediscover his music.
©Pieter Stas
BLUES, REDS and OTHER SONGS
In this day and age, who still writes love songs for a chosen woman of yesteryear? With sounds that whistle deep blue and remind you of the blues – the origins of jazz? – in his new composition Robin Verheyen takes colors from Jean Fouquet’s ‘Madonna’ and assigns them to his tenor and soprano, the three musicians of the Goeyvaerts String Trio and the 88 keys of Marc Copland’s piano.
The masterpiece ‘Madonna’ in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp dates to around 1452 and is the right half of a diptych. The other piece, in Berlin, depicts the client of this work of art and his patron saint. Together, they form the so-called Melun diptych. In Antwerp you can see a ‘Maria Lactans’: the intimate theme of a mother breastfeeding her child. Because the subject was always updated to the fashion, taste or insights of the time, it continues to give new meaning.
In Master Fouquet’s version, seraphs and cherubs appear. Throne and crown also replace the old-fashioned Gothic gold aureole. But the Madonna remains exalted with all good things: ‘de tous bien plaine’. That is certainly how the coveted chanson by Hayne van Gizhegem from Fouquet’s time sounds (which was incorporated by Robin Verheyen into his composition). They both free their art from devotion and cautiously put the autonomous aesthetic experience first. Mary becomes heavenly and profane, simultaneously. Her ivory skin remains unblemished, but – so the gossip of the time wants: “Isn’t that Agnes Sorel”, the mistress of the French king? Is the most beautiful woman of the beau-monde a model for the Mother of God?
In ‘Blues, Reds and Other Songs’, Robin Verheyen draws inspiration from the characteristic harmony of the budding renaissance with quotes (such as the hymn Ave Maris Stella), canon techniques and faux-bourdon. Could the musical ornaments and fugal imitations of that period already have predicted the uniqueness of jazz?
A composition is made up of different layers. In a painting, this is represented by the harmony between horizontal, vertical and the suggestion of depth with a front, middle and back plan. Mary with child, the throne and the angels, especially the blue ones, in the depths can be translated into the polyphony of the music. In contemporary music we may too often listen to what’s on the surface: the highest voice, the melody. Polyphony, on the other hand, is an exercise in a continuous interaction between all voices that shift in a virtuoso way between foreground and background. Verheyen’s composition makes the connection between all these voices and layers in an organic way.
Tempo and rhythm is the flow with which the eye explores the composition. The exposed bosom probably lingers on many retinas a little longer. Let’s not view that perfect geometry by today’s standards lest this noblewoman be suspected of plastic surgery. The idealized form fits within a Platonic perspective and is even a compelling moral exhortation to relationships stripped of sensuality or desire. The mysterious appeal of the painting and this newly created music corresponds precisely within the search for what perfection and aesthetics mean in a given time.
Stef Van Bellingen
DUET with ECCE
How do you translate the intensity, complexity, and physicality of a musical work into dance? Can you read the movement of a composition in a body? In her new creation Duet for two string trios, Claire Croizé and the Goeyvaerts String Trio seek answers to these questions through two string trios by contemporary composer Charles Wuorinen. The first work was composed in 1968 and the second in 2017, especially for the Goeyvaerts String Trio. The half-century that lies between them is reflected in stark contrasts: while the first trio bursts with expressiveness and energy, the second moves with barely restrained lyricism.
Dancers Emmi Väisänen and Jason Respilieux throw their bodies into the fray against this auditory violence. Music and dance revolve around each other in a game that is as dynamic and changeable as the string trios themselves: never a one-to-one translation, always a dialogue. Inspired by Wuorinen’s early 20th-century musical influences and the verses of Pavese and Rilke, Duet for two string trios tells a story that is as intense and disruptive as the times we live in.
Artist in Residence @KMSKA
During the impressive renovation of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), the Goeyvaerts String Trio captured a unique document of the times. Using 360° recordings and music, they created a compelling experience that highlights the significant changes in three different museum rooms.
You are the director. Thanks to the 360° images, recorded with a Ricoh Theta V, you decide where to look and listen. With a mobile device, you can intuitively move along with the music, while on a computer you can use the orientation arrows to direct your gaze. Tip: select the highest resolution in the settings for the best experience!
The trio chose an excerpt from Anton Webern’s String Trio Op. 20 (1926), always played in the same place in the hall. This allows you to hear and see how the acoustics and atmosphere of the spaces evolve during the renovation.
Violin: Kristien Roels (until August 2019), Fedra Coppens (from September 2019)
Viola: Kris Matthynssens
Cello: Pieter Stas