Collaborative Composing
The relationship between performer and composer has changed drastically over time. Initially, performers created their own music, but gradually, composition became a specialised profession, and composers were no longer necessarily performers themselves.
The rise of the “genius mastermind” concept —granting the composer a monopoly over the creative process— reduced the performer to a mere executor of ideas.
Today, this imbalance is increasingly questioned and feels less relevant. In my collaborative practice, I challenge and reshape this relationship by returning as much creative power as possible to the performer. Working with a broad range of artists beyond traditional composers, we develop concepts together. Improvisations then evolve, guided toward a final outcome that grants musicians freedom, navigating the blurred lines between structure and spontaneity.
The result is a set of performance-based compositions that highlight each musician’s unique qualities by drawing from their individual sonic worlds.
Breathing Every Now and Then
conceptualised with Alexander Chernyshkov
The initial idea was to create a piece inspired by the ancient Turkish Mehter orchestra tradition. These orchestras could grow to more than 1,000 members during wartime, aiming to intimidate the enemy with gigantic bass drums —carried by elephants— and piercing, massive wind sounds.
Today in Flanders, there is still a strong tradition of wind orchestras, though now they primarily perform marches and light-hearted tunes meant to entertain.
The contrast between their historic role and their present-day evolution is striking and deeply intriguing.
Together with Alexander, we built a one-man orchestra that blends absurd comedy and nostalgic melodies with the most contemporary and frightening sonic textures.
TUIN
conceptualised with Anna Godzina and Rei Munakata.
performed by Nadar Ensemble (Marieke Berendsen, Bertel Schollaert, Wannes Gonnissen)
Today’s society can feel like a constant bombardment of our senses: screens and smartphones, an endless soundscape of music, traffic, and conversation, and a persistent pressure to respond. It’s striking to watch old classic films or television series and notice their slower pace; reminding us how deeply we’ve adapted to this accelerating rhythm.
Much contemporary art reflects this trend. Screens and projections are frequently added to music or dance, and the rapid change of material creates an endless crescendo of stimulation.
TUIN tries to create a space that does the opposite. A space that limits our input, giving importance to the tiniest details, finding back a focus.
TUIN is an installation for 3 live performers, silent disco headphones and an empty space.
TUIN is based on principles of a Japanese zen garden.
Where Edges Merge
conceptualised with Momoka Kihara
performed with Momoka Kihara
for dancer & clarinet player with spring drum extension
What is a contour, if not a fragile fiction of division -between object and atmosphere, gesture and stasis, self and other?
Not as lines, but as thresholds —between breath and motion, presence and its shimmer.
As the piece unfolds like a meditation on the ontological instability of boundaries, the ‘natural’ edge of space, sound, and body is held under erasure.
Meaning dissolves in motion.
The floor forgets its shape where gravity hesitates.
Where Edges Merge and Blur is the result of an ongoing artistic exchange between dancer Momoka Kihara and clarinetist Dries Tack. Through a shared journal, they exchanged recordings of sound and movement, sketches, structures, and, at times, just words. These fragments sparked a dialogue that led them to discover a shared vocabulary within the concert theme: Swaying Contour.
The Pheromone of Discarded Objects
Conceptualized with My Hellgren
Performed with My Hellgren
The Pheromone of Discarded Objects unfolds as a series of unstable gestures, where the nymphs of the woods and the goddesses of the fountains coexist in an uneasy alliance of resonance and rupture. Masters of song from distant lands dissipate —like echoes of something once coherent, now only half-remembered— slipping between structure and dissolution, into piercing cries and laments.
Just as plants emit pheromones to signal danger to others, this piece wonders: might discarded objects be capable of doing the same? By combining a strange, self-made instrument with the perfectly crafted form of the cello, the work reflects on the hidden histories of objects as observers of generations, bearing the silent marks of time’s passage.
