[sold out] Hans Beckers

Welcome to the 19th edition of Klarafestival! The theme Crossroads - Come Together keenly evokes the convergence of the audience, the artists and their inspiring concerts. A meeting place where the leading lights of international classical music enter into dialogue with challenging creations and young talent. 

The inspiration for this edition comes from festival artist Claron McFadden. As she told us in an interview, “I stand at a crossroads where styles and generations cross, meet, and collide”. This notion forms the core of the programme. We hope you will enjoy Klarafestival as a sanctuary of hope, polyphony and beauty in all its forms. As a place where the familiar takes on new meaning and where new experiences take you by surprise. 

Jan Raes, chairman

Joost Fonteyne, intendant

Chantal Pattyn, manager Klara

There’s music in there

Hans Beckers has a house with a garden. In that garden stands a huge tree. Hans often goes out and stands listening to the tree. That might sound odd, but is perfectly normal: we humans have always had an ear for the sounds of nature. That needed to be so, because early man living in nature had to be alert to its dangers. For those early humans, conscious or unconscious listening to the sounds of their surroundings was also undoubtedly an aesthetic experience. No wonder that the first musical instruments (drums, for example) were made from materials found in nature (such as animal hides).    

There is always something to hear

In the 20th century, there arose a pair of prophets of the listening world. John Cage, the American composer, created the renowned work 4’33” . A pianist - but it could be any instrument – sits at the piano and remains there for just over four minutes – though this can be longer or shorter – silently playing nothing. Cage wished, with this experimental piece, considered a joke by some though certainly not meant as such, to draw attention to the presence of random sounds. Complete silence does not exist, he said. ‘There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot’.       
 

In the 1970’s, the Texan composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros used the term ‘deep listening’ for the first time. For Oliveros, deep listening was an intense, environmentally-directed approach to listening, when, between musicians, and between musicians and audience, an acoustic connection occurs. A connection to each other and to our surroundings. Oliveros became ever more explicit on the difference between hearing and listening. The first ‘is the physical way that perception makes possible’, the second ‘is paying attention to what is acoustically and psychologically perceived’. The most intense way of listening, for which she coined the term ‘deep listening’, she describes as ‘listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear, no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, or one’s own thoughts as well as musical sounds’.
 

Today, much thought is given to the wider acoustic environment in which we live. Leiden University even has a Professor of Auditory Culture: the Rotterdammer Marcel Cobussen. The title of his most recent publication speaks volumes: Engaging with everyday sounds. As well as the more aesthetic, musical and artistic implications, Cobussen focuses on everyday audio experience. He was asked by the authorities, for example, to examine how attention to sound might play a greater role in the layout of urban public spaces.

A way of living

But back to Hans Beckers’ garden. There stands Hans, before that huge singing tree. He ponders the climate crisis, the importance of environmental quality, and the conservation of ecosystems. ‘La Floresta’, says Hans, ‘is my way of offering an answer to these many complex questions’. With this work, he wishes to create a fresh context, ‘in which we can consciously connect with ourselves, with each other and our surroundings, but also with silence and the sound contained within that silence’.   

Thus, La Floresta is not only an artistic work, ‘but also a way to live life’. Through his work, Hans Beckers wishes to ‘exercise, sharpen and make optimal use of’ our senses. Senses in the plural, because not only our ears are activated. Each and every day, we must relearn how to look, listen, feel, smell and taste, because only in this way can we become really open to the world.   

Hans wishes to put his audience in a ‘trance-like state’, where we ‘can experience sound in all its layering’. He strives, with sounds, to generate an experience in which the rigid boundary between man and his environment no longer exists.

Craftwork with seashells etcetera

How does he do this? Among other things, by playing with natural materials like seashells, leaves, seed pods, sand, pebbles and water. These reference primal instruments (remember those drums made from animal hides). However, we no longer live in primeval times, and today, with various technological aids, we can capture, play with, process, adapt. Thus, nature and technology come together. Not in contradiction, but strengthening and uplifting each other. Through this undertaking there emerges a total experience, in which natural sounds become both tangible and visible.

Welcome to Hans Beckers’ garden. Now forget the above words and phrases. Let go of your intellect and rely on your senses. Experience, without inhibition, the visual and auditory world of La Floresta. Ignore this advice if you must. You are the one in control. You control this experience – or you allow the experience to be dictated by the circumstances.  Hans Beckers’ world of sound is open, free and honest. One thing is certain: the day to day sounds around you will, after La Floresta, never sound quite the same again.  

Hendrik Vanden Abeele

Hans Beckers

Hans Beckers is a versatile artist who combines music, sound and visual art into creations on the border between performance and sound installation. In his work, he investigates the sound qualities of everyday or natural objects, which he brings together in experimental, self-made instruments. His work has already been shown and performed at various international art houses such as the Opéra de Lille, the Stavanger Konserthus and the Casa Modernista São Paulo. Beckers has also written music for theatre and film and is part of the interdisciplinary Post.Traum Collective, founded by poet-theatre maker Maya Wuytack, which brings together theatre, music, performance art and dance.

Berlinde Deman

As a tubist, Berlinde Deman is a permanent member of the big band Flat Earth Society led by Peter Vermeersch. She has also collaborated on various projects in jazz, classical music and theatre with, among others, Dave Douglas, Spinvis, Dick van der Harst and ChampdAction. A few years ago, she discovered the serpent, a 16th-century wind instrument in the bass register with a unique, dark timbre, which she gradually develops in her performances by combining the instrument with electronics and loops. The discovery of this special instrument led to new collaborations with Graindelavoix, B.O.X, Jon Doe One, and Mirko Banovic, among others.

Nathan Daems

Nathan Daems is a jazz musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist. After his five-year jazz training as a saxophonist, he studied with various musicians from Eastern Europe, Asia, West Africa and Brazil, where he learned to play traditional instruments and mastered the repertoire and improvisation practices of those traditions. In his compositions and improvisations, he combines these various cultural influences with jazz to create experimental, meditative music. Daems has founded several ensembles, including BLACK FLOWER, Bazaar d'Orient, Collective N Trance and Ragini Trio and collaborated with musicians such as Ibrahim Maalouf, Bojan Z and The Gaslamp Killer.

La Floresta consists of three parts: a listening walk (20 minutes), a preparation moment (20 minutes) and the concert part (60 minutes).  

The performance starts with a listening walk around Bozar. This is done in silence, to experience the surroundings and landscape in a more profound way. Once back at Bozar, musicians will prepare all your senses for the concert. In a connecting room, you will take  place among the sound sculptures and become part of the sound installation. 

Please note that the walk is not accessible to people with reduced mobility.