This program is driven by my search of what it means to be a solo percussionist with an interest in contemporary-experimental music at this very day and age.

That search is twofold: on the one hand, it symbolizes my personal evolution as a post-instrumentalist, as well as the development of my knowledge of live electronics. On the other hand, this search leads me beyond my personal experiences and towards the importance of interaction, more specifically the interaction between performer and audience. The idea is to create a larger consciousness about the existence and different forms of contemporary classical music culture, this by creating and working on the intersection between contemporary classical music and pop music.

BOLSTER is, in one way, literally the bolster of the project: this part is concerned with the practical side of it all. Within this part, I place the focus on pop music and the measure to which current pop culture influences our aesthetical choices. This may range from purely promotional imagery, to videoclips inspired by the minimalist and monochromatic style of pop music, with of course the necessary re-interpretation within a post-instrumentalist repertoire.

In another way, BOLSTER also symbolizes the spiny shell created by a small elite within contemporary music culture in order to distinguish and distance it from other genres, and which may – at times – be difficult to break through. This threatens to rapidly cause a certain inaccessibility of the genre for more mainstream audiences. By influencing the bolster with colorful and warm [bubbels], I hope to give this shell new meaning and accessibility.

[bubbel] stands for the direct experience within the moment of performance itself: submerging the audience in my personal, abstract world and view on aesthetics in a post-instrumentalist framework.

An active and actual reshaping of the space by means of scenographic interventions, as well as blurring the line between performer and personage, are determining factors in this submersion. All of this will be framed in a comprehensive set of miniature compositions, which will be permeated by live looping and the use of midi-controllers, and wherein the role of performer and creator fuse with one another.