articles
MetaPhase: a dialogue between a pianist and her avatar in the metaverse
What new possibilities do technological advances offer for our listening experience? The research project MetaPhase focuses on interaction between human and virtual musicians in a new world encompassing both real and virtual space. As part of the European STARTS 2023 Award, the research has just received an honourable mention from the European Commission. MetaPhase was selected from over 1,600 applications. …
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Festival 20·21 en Transit willen oren en geest openzetten
Festival 20•21 en Transit, het jaarlijkse twee-in-één muziekfeest van de 20e en 21e eeuw, hebben dit jaar gekozen voor diversiteit en verrijking van de muzikale smaak met vooral Vlaamse musici. Het motto luidt “open geest, open oren”. De centrale figuur in Festival 20•21 is pianist Jan Michiels. Hij is een oude bekende van het Leuvense festival en is van …
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Karel Goeyvaerts: the amiable innovator
This week we remember composer Karel Goyvaerts who unexpectedly died thirty years ago. He was a pioneer in many fields: integral serial music, electronics and minimal music. He is known as a hard-working and committed musician, who could easily have entered history with a little less modesty. Karel Goeyvaerts (1923 – 1993) studied piano, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, composition and music …
John Cage, inventor of visual music
Tomorrow it is thirty years ago that John Cage died. Joyful existentialist, professional enfant terrible, innocent boy scout – Cage was everything. And if that had not been enough, he would have invented it. John Cage (1912 – 1992) was a composer, artist, painter, poet, Zen Buddhist, inventor and mushroom connoisseur (mycologist). A cultural and intellectual omnivore, who lived from …
Philippe Boesmans (1936 – 2022)
Belgian composer, Philippe Boesmans died last night after a short illness. Born on 17 May 1936 in Tongeren, Belgium, he and studied piano at the conservatory in Liège, where he was also introduced to serial composing techniques by Pierre Froidebise. It was only after coming into contact with the “Liège Group” (Henri Pousseur, André Souris, and Célestin Deliège [fr]) in …
Luc Brewaeys: a life of timbre, bells and exuberance
BREWAEYS UNFOLDING is the title of a project dedicated to the hyperkinetic Flemish composer Luc Brewaeys (1959 – 2015). With an exhibition, a catalogue and a webpage, the curators have succeeded in keeping the colourful beauty of his musical career up-to-date. MATRIX (Centre for New Music) in Leuven is the driving force behind this project, in collaboration with KU Leuven …
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The slow hands of Jan Michiels
Transit 2021 honours the piano as a spiritual medium Slowly, after the last stanza by Osvaldo Coluccino, Jan Michiels’ hands slide from the keys to the edge of the keyboard. They form fists that rest on his knees. It is finished, silence and repentance have been stretched to the limit. The recital has ended, now there is nothing. By Wynold …