Myoelastic (2013)
In the piece ‘Myoelastic’, written for an dedicated to Françoise Vanhecke, i tried to explore all possibilities of her ISFV singing technique, along with all kind of other sounds the voice can produce.
The piece starts out with natural breath sounds, which gradually become voiced and finally evolve a ISFV ‘muliphonic’ sound. In the next passage, rhythmic tongue clicking is alternated with different kinds of inhaling techniques, varying from pure sounds to multiphonics and heavily distorted sounds, also making gradual transitions in between them.
Next comes a passage with continuous fast arpeggio’s, alternating between normal and inhaling singing as a vocal alternative to circular breathing.
The piece ends with bocca chiusa inhaling chromatic descending lines, fading out into silence
Not drawing a box with negative dimension (2015)
An interactive composition for clarinet en electronics, where the movement of the clarinet palyer controls the electronic processing of the sounds he produces.
Written on demand by Toon Quanten.
Broken (2015)
A solopiece for harp, written for Sofie Baguet
Two sketches (2012)
Two very short pieces for flute, piano and gamba, written on demand of doctoral researcher Hans Roels, who, as part of his research into hyperpolyphony, asked several composers two write short pieces where the different voices where ‘as different as possible’.
Beasleyi (2011)
This piece for Bajan solo was commisioned by the Transit festival in Leuven and November music. This commision was a welcome occasion to write once again a piece for solo instrument, with no electronics our robots invovled – something i haven’t been doing for a while.
Bajan player An Raskin showed me the way into the possibilities and ‘extended techniques’ of the instrument, which i gratefully used.
The piece starts out with a soundscape on the border of silence, starting from pure wind wounds, from which gradually soft tones emerge, which evolve into a more dense passage with lots of clusters, glissandi and below shakes.
Then here is a transition to a chorale passage, in which the Bajan’s organ-like capacities come to the fore. Departing from the centre, the players both hands move to the extremes of the tessitura.
After a brief reference to the beginning, follows a rhythmic passage with clusters exchanged between the two hands. This passage forms the bridge to a more peacefull section in free rhythm, that, starting from the extremes of the tessitura, evolves back to the centre and builds up to a climax again. This penultimate part is made up of three elements: long sustained notes, which conceal several hidden melodies, ornaments on those notes, which gr4adually take on a life of their own and are spun out longer and longer, and rhythmic chords that interrupt the long notes. The concludng finale is based on the clusters from the bridge.
This piece was premiered by Ludo Mariën on October 23rd 2011, during the Transit festival.
Brachycalix (2011)
A piece for clarinet and live electronics, written on demand by and premiered by Daniel Pastene.
Displacing Quarters, Bow, Slurp(zand) 2010
Three pieces for various instruments and live electronics i created together with Laura Maes, as part of our new project ‘Morf’.
In de kersenboom (2009 – 12′)
Live-electronic music as an accompagniment of the poem with the same name by Olaf Risee
Waiters at a galop (2009 – 10′)
The first compositon part of Morf, a collaboration between Laura Maes and Kristof Lauwers, for slide guitar and live-electronics
Premiered at the SMC conference in Porto, 2009.
Glycyrrhizin (2006 – 7′)
Glycyrrhizin is an interactive piece for guitar and laptop. The computer part is a counterpunctual second voice to the guitar. It is a patch, written in Pure Data, which analyses the guitar signal and which reacts to it and transforms it. The interaction is based on simple triggers that start and stop processes, but also on the analysis of continuous parameters such as rhythmic density, pitch and volume, which steer other parameters in the computer part.
Premiered on the Ipem ‘Music & Motion’ concert, by Laura Maes
Sir John Longton, revisited (2004 – 8′)
This is kind of a radical remix of Sir John Longton, His Pavan, a consort piece by rennaissance composer John Dowland. It is based on a frequency analysis of a recording of this piece, from which i retained only the most striking changes in the spectrum. As a result, much of the original harmony of the piece disappears to the background in favour of more rare spectral components.
For a composition based on a rennaisance piece, historical instruments where an obvious choise, so it is written for theorbo, harpsichord and gamba, but the sounds of those instruments are also live processed by a Pure Data patch
This piece has been premiered by Dirk Moelants (gamba), Matthias Trofaes (harpsichord), Thomas Smetryns (theorbo) and myself (laptop).
Thintroppoinmealways (2004 – 8′)
Thintroppoinmealways is a piece for two voices and interactive electronics. The voice sounds are continuously recorded, analysed and transformed by a computer program built on GMT and Pure Data. The transforamtions of the voice sounds are then used as an answer to new sounds made by the voices. Which transformations exactly happen is partly predetermined, but is also dependent on the pitch, the volume, the rythm, … of the voice sounds.
This piece was written for Maja Jantar and Jelle Meander.
GBZKGD (2002 – 9′)
I wrote this piece on demand by the instrument builder Manu Frederickx, for a replica of an italian baroque harpsichord he made and provided with four contact microphones. The harpsichord sounds are sent to a computer, from where they are transformed by an audiomulch patch we control in real time. Kristof Meers made an accompanying video installation.
The title is a reference to John Cages happening HPSCHD, the first piece ever where harpsichord sounds and live electronics were used together.
Doskordianistick (2001 – 6′)
This piece for two guitars is, both on macro- and microlevel, based on the repetition of a limited number of musical elements, that are gradually built up and modulated in different parameters. The nature of the modulations is fixed in the score, but the filling-in is largely up to the performers
This piece was written for the guitar duo Saffraan.
grafikc (2001)
This is a piece for three players, each playing a different instrument. Two instruments should be able to hold long notes, one high and one low, the third instrument should be a plucked string instrument, or any instrument that has of its nature non sustained sounds.
Each player has a score with some notes on which (s)he can extemporate and graphics defining parameters like speed rhytmical regularity, pure tones vs noise etc. The score leaves a lot of freedom for the players, but at the same time it’s quite a challenge for the interpreters, as up to six different musical parameters have to be guarded in a somewhat alienating way.
For 9 guitars (2001 – 8′)
Processing #4 (2001/obsoleted – 12′)
For flute and interactive live electronics. Premiered at the Logos Foundation 1999 by Karin De Fleyt
Processing #3 (1999)
for Flute, voice and theremin
Processing #1 (1998 – 5′)
For Flute, guitar and accordeon. Premiered at the Muziekronde van Vlaanderen 1999
Therminus (1998 – 5’3″)
for 3 theremins
Stream of Inconsciousness Picolo (1997 – 3′)
for Picolo, flute and Eb Clarinet 3
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