Squaring the Circle
Heleen Van Haegenborgh has composed a piece for four percussionists especially for Zindering. She drew inspiration from the work of the artist Johan De Wilde, specifically his endless series of drawings based on the number pi. Each new drawing contains a new series of digits after the decimal point.
In Squaring the Circle, she derives composition techniques from the famous number. For Van Haegenborgh, white noise is a plausible musical translation of pi. So it is no surprise that percussion instruments – the quintessential noise producers – play the central role.
Squaring the circle
composition
Heleen Van Haegenborgh
image
Johan De Wilde
performance
GAME (Aya Suzuki, Anita Capucinelli, Lucas Messler, Federico Tramontana)
Bakunawa
composition, chimes, toy piano, metal objects
Pak Yan Lau
chimes, toy piano, metal objects
Giovanni Di Domenico, João Lobo, Mathieu Calleja, Vera Cavallin
sound and electronics
Christophe Albertijn
Bakunawa
Pianist Pak Yan Lau makes no secret of her love for improvisation, sounds and experimentation. Lau’s musical house has many rooms. It includes minimal sound explorations (Lauroshilau and Stills), toy/noise-pop/rock (The Crappy Mini Band), free impro (in her work with Mette Rasmussen or Chris Corsano) and electro-groove/ambient (Going). As a soloist, she has released her trilogy Books. She takes on a different guise in each of them, playing a specially “prepared” piano (Book of Wood), a synthesizer, sampler and electronics (Book of Star) and, lastly, toy pianos, chimes and electronics (Book of Toy). This 10” triple album was greeted with extreme enthusiasm.
Her newest project is called Bakunawa. It is a continuation of her solo project Book of Toy, in which she showed her fascination for the natural overtones she creates with toy pianos and chimes. In Bakunawa she extends her collection of instruments to include metal tubes and a harp, writing for an ensemble of five musicians. Lau intends for the project to evolve into one long, crafted piece inspired by Asian ritual music, minimal music (think Philip Glass and Eliane Radigue) and ambient. Bakunawa promises to be its own world of sound that invites you to become immersed and lose yourself completely.
*Bakunawa is a snake-like dragon from the Philippines.
‘Lau is more than capable of crafting intriguing soundworlds.’ - The Wire.
