Koen Boeijinga: Music of the Herd

Free folk, avant-garde folk, ritual music, mystical pastoralism

Koen Boeijinga travels with a herd of instruments. Like a modern-day nomad, he roams through musical grasslands, driven by the archaic kinship between human, animal, and landscape. Flutes, saxophone, bagpipes, drums, harmonium, gamelan, and various sounds from his global collection of instruments unfold a contemporary, hypnotic pastoral tale—woven together with wind instruments and percussion from every corner of the world.

Duo Alofs & Kamperman

Contemporary/jazz/dada

A vocalist and a bass clarinetist—both with one foot in jazz and the other in contemporary music. Fanny Alofs studied jazz at the Royal Conservatory and was selected as a "Young Artist" by Carnegie Hall—not once, but twice. She has since performed in a multitude of contemporary productions, collaborating with composers such as Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, and David Lang. Steven Kamperman also began his career firmly rooted in jazz; however, following an extensive exploration of Turkish music, he has become increasingly well-known over the past few decades as a composer of large-scale contemporary music-theater projects. Neither has ever lost the art of improvisation, and in their duo, these spontaneous moments frequently blend seamlessly into their own original compositions. The result is a tapestry of infectious grooves, rapid-fire musical exchanges, ethereal clouds of sound, and dizzying unison passages—all interspersed with an unvarnished love for a moving song. It is lyrical music performed right on the razor’s edge.

Ensemble SeaSession

20th-century American avant-garde, featuring works by John Cage: aleatoric music, sound, and silence

Prepare to be surprised by chance, experimentation, and silence! Ensemble SeaSession invites you into a unique musical world where chance takes center stage, boundaries are pushed, and silence is just as meaningful as sound. Through adventurous compositions by avant-garde figures such as John Cage, Erik Satie, and Henry Cowell, the ensemble presents music that ignites the imagination. This unconventional program serves as a preview of Astrokat—Ensemble SeaSession’s new music-theater production. It is an invitation to listen in a new way, to embrace the unexpected, and to let yourself be carried away into a universe filled with sound, silence, and experimentation.

Performers:

Pepe Garcia – percussion, Stefan Woudenberg – clarinet, Ingrid Geerling – flute, Anneke Janssen – cello, Evert Weidner – oboe, Pauline Post – piano

Program: 20:00–22:00 (including intermissions). Each ensemble performs for approximately 30 minutes. Doors open at 19:30.