The year of Shackle

2012 was the year when Shackle released the Shackle Stick and toured the world!

The very last Karnatic Lab

On 12 December I had the honor of performing at the last Karnatic Lab concert in the Badcuyp in Amsterdam. This is a series that had been providing performance opportunities for the more experimental impro and composed music for the last 12 years. I played a version of ur_DU where I tried out a couple of new things.

The organizers Ned McGowan, Gijs Levelt and Susanna Borsch did a great job keeping this series fresh and alive all these years.

Hats off and long live the performing arts!

Shackle at Delicatessen

Shackle likes to play with guests!
We give them a bit of control of our system and enjoy seeing what will happen with new combinations of musicians. On December 8 we played with guitarist Lukas Simonis at one of the last amplified music nights at the Delicatessen in Amsterdam. This was one of our most successful Shackle “Affairs” we’ve had.

Vrije Geluiden

I played on Dutch National TV this morning for a program called Vrije Geluiden representing Splendor, an initiative by a group of Dutch musicians that is worth taking a look at.

Aisling Casey and I performed the premiere of Mit einem Fuß im Grabe, dem anderen im Himmel by Wilbert Bulsink. The piece was finished yesterday!

The broadcast was live from the Money Museum in Utrecht.

It’s been quite a day. We all had to get up before 6.00 to get there and set up.

You can view it a here. For those of you who cannot follow the Dutch, our performance starts at 22’38″.

Shackle at the Interactive Keyboard Symposium

Shackle performed Robert van Heumen’s piece The Sound of the Machine at the Interactive Keyboard Symposium at Goldsmith’s College in London last Sunday. This piece uses a disklavier and I was using a new firewire audio device. We were both pleased and relieved that all the hardware and software worked.

The added benefit was that we had a great time performing the piece.

Converging Objects at the Brussels Conservatory

On 5 and 6 November Shackle was in residence at the Brussels Conservatory. After the two days of coaching we gave a concert using the Shackle system. The students were full of ideas and learned new material super quickly. All in all an inspiring couple of days. Many thanks to Kasia Glowicka for taking such good care of us and for preparing her class so well.

MAZE

I just finished 5 days of rehearsing and recording with maZe, a new band with Yannis Kyriakides on electronics, Gareth Davis on bass clarinet, Wiek Hijmans on guitars, Dario Calderone on double bass, Reinier van Houdt on piano and electronics and me on flutes and electronics. And the composers? Some of my favorites: John Cage, Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley and Christian Marclay.

Wien Modern

I just returned from a few days in Vienna where my piece Swamp was performed by Manon-Liu Winter on clavichord, Matija Schellander on double bass, Isabelle Duthoit on voice and me on flute. Our soloist was a 8m film projector. A good time was had by all.

Many thanks to the E_may team for producing this event and the folks at the Kabelwerk for putting me up and providing the venue. And Wien Modern for programming such an adventuresome evening. The Vienna Zeitung published a positive review.

Photo credit: Markus Sepperer

Photo credit: Markus Sepperer

Photo credit: Markus Sepperer

I also spent 2 and a half days as a subject for a documentary film about me. The interviews were done by Rebekah Wilson, the filming by Reinhard Mayr and the production is by IMA. That was quite an experience doing my best to stand still and explain myself in parks, theaters and the old, old art academy.

On my way home from around the world.

I had an incredible month out on the road. Many thanks to all my new acquaintences who have become colleagues and friends.

And special thanks to Robert van Heumen. A great and Shackling musical companion!

Sao Paulo, the last day.
Madrid, the last plane change.

Lecture and concert in Rio de Janeiro

The last city in my part of the Shackle around-the-world tour was at UFRJ, the conservatory in Rio de Janeiro. What a warm and vibrant place this is! The students had lists of questions at my lecture/demo and the concert was one of the high points of this tour.

I know I’ll see both Eduardo Monteiro and Rodrigo Cicchelli Velloso again. They were great hosts and became good friends. Who would have known that we flutists/composers would meet up in this part of the world to make music, eat and drink.