New trio with Sakina Abdou & Mariam Rezaei

Last week this wonderful new trio with saxophonist Sakina Abdou and turntablist Mariam Rezaei came together for a residency at STUK in Leuven for the first time. Such a dream to work with these amazing and inspiring musicians !

We found out all three of us are born in 1984, a year with a somewhat ominous ring to it, quite reflective of current times (thanks Orwell), but also a great band name, this might stick : )

Sci-fi references don't have to be dystopian of course, like the great Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novel The Dispossessed served as inspiration to write music for this new trio. In a somewhat inconspicuous passage Le Guin describes how the main character, the brilliant physicist Shevek, meets a composer who translated Shevek's revolutionary theories into a musical composition:

“I’m writing a piece of chamber music. Thought I might call it The Simultaneity Principle. [Several] instruments each playing an independent cyclic theme; no melodic causality; the forward process entirely in the relationship of the parts. It makes a lovely harmony.”

I decided to write some melodies with this quote in mind, allowing space for improvisation, co-creation and experimentation, the musicians operating as a hybrid trio in between cycles and sequences, non-linearity as default yet all in one simultaneous forward process. Putting these ideas to practice during this residency together with Sakina and Mariam was fascinating, inspiring and fun ! More to follow soon (stay put for Summer Bummer festival in Antwerp :) )

#newtrio #1984 #sakinaabdou #mariamrezaei #turntables #saxophone #guitar #theforwardprocess #simultaneityprinciple #ursulaleguin #stuk #residency

PhD Thesis: Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Thought Unit Construct And Post-war Western Art Music

On October 26 I successfully defended my PhD! This particular event, which took place at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, represented something of a closure of what has been a five year deep dive into the fascinating musical world of Anthony Braxton. A musical journey that that had an immense and transformative impact on my practice as a performing musician and human being. It generated incredibly unique musical encounters which I will carry with me for a long time to come and opened new pathways to creative music making.

My thesis was developed and published on the Research Catalogue platform and is available in the link below.

Noise Uprising CD Release

Christopher Trapani’s epic song cycle Noise Uprising has been released on New World Records !

The new release from Christopher Trapani on the venerable yet ceaselessly enterprising New World label is an astonishing creation. My response is profound and visceral… there are beautiful, moving songs here." —For The Record

An absolute knockout. A fascinating and deeply involving trip around the world that you won’t soon forget" —An Earful

The incredible music on Noise Uprising further splinters and fractures tradition, making fresh connections and dazzlingly strange hybrids, all reinforcing the transfixing power of sounds from another time. —Bandcamp Daily, Best Contemporary Classical Music

The versatile performances by both singers and the Belgian foursome Zwerm - which employs an immense instrumentation of guitars - only confirm the oceanic grandeur of this cycle. —De Standaard

All music by Christopher Trapani

Performed by Zwerm (Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, Toon Callier, Johannes Westendorp & Christopher Trapani) and singers Sophia Burgos and Sofia Jernberg.

Recorded by Nicolas Rombouts (studio Caporal) in Studio 3, DE SINGEL, Antwerp.
Mastering by Paul Zinman, SoundByte Productions Inc., NYC
Cover photo by Christopher Trapani
Liner notes by Ian Nagoski and Christopher Trapani

About Noise Uprising:
Starting point for this songcycle is Michael Denning’s book "Noise Uprising", which chronicles the explosion of vernacular recording that took place in the late 1920s in port cities around the globe. The historical 78 rpm records of this era are the not-so-silent witnesses of the birth of son, jazz, samba, rembetiko, fado, tango, etc. They reveal a kind of B-side of music history, a people’s history of music-making driven by the bustling marketplaces of colonial port cities. Noise Uprising is a polystylistic atlas that unravels a subterranean, cross-cultural network far away from, and with a wider reach than, traditional concert halls.
In studying these 78s as primary source documents, Christopher Trapani transcribes and transforms their musical gestures. He uncovers hidden connections between geographically distant genres, but in doing so he always strives to create work that ultimately represents something more than a travelogue or a book of postcards. The short works he composed for this cycle are meant to call into question notions of cultural appropriation and authenticity, to challenge rather than to romanticize notions of the exotic, and to draw attention to the dangers of “overtourism” and the unreflective, superficial consumption of place.
The guitar, in all its possible variations, forms a common thread throughout the cycle. But also the human voice plays a central role in Noise Uprising. For this project, made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Trapani and Zwerm are joined by Swedish-Ethiopian soprano Sofia Jernberg and Puerto Rican soprano Sophia Burgos. ​

Creative Orcestra with Ictus, Brussels Philharmonic and Ilan Volkov

On 16 and 17/11, 2023 I had the immense pleasure to closely collaborate and co-lead a unique performance of several of Anthony Braxton’s composition for Creative Orchestra with none other than the Ictus Ensemble, Brussels Philharmonic and conductor Ilan Volkov. The performance involved three conductors, with Volkov as main conductor, and myself as second conductor (also playing e-guitar in the ensemble), allowing for Braxton’s unique holistic approach of combining and superimposing several compositions and Language Music improvisations in an orchestral context. We performed Compositions No. 151, No. 147 and No. 63, in addition to smaller peces from the quartet books (played by the Ictus musicians) No. 69Q, 40F, 6F and 23H. We played two concerts, on 16/11 at Concertgebouw Brugge and on 17/11 at DE SINGEL International Arts Center in Antwerp. The performance was part of a larger program under the title “Forces in Motion” which also featured Diamonds for 1, 2 or 3 Orchestras by Alvin Lucier and the incredible piece Six scenes for Turntables and Orchestra by Mariam Rezaei and Matthew Shlomowitz (in which I also played e-guitar). Below is a short trailer of the event and some pics.

Noise Uprising

On october 22 we premiered Christopher Trapani’s new song cycle Noise Uprising at Transit Festival in Leuven.

We = Zwerm (with Christopher playing with us in the band!) and amazing singers Sophia Burgos and Sofia Jernberg.

Click here for more info and fututure dates of Noise Uprising !

The inspiration comes from Michael Denning’s book Noise Uprising, which chronicles the explosion of vernacular recording that took place in the late 1920s in port cities around the globe. The historical 78 rpm records of this era are the not-so-silent witnesses of the birth of son, jazz, samba, rembetiko, fado, tango, etc. They reveal a kind of B-side of music history, a people’s history of music-making driven by the bustling marketplaces of colonial port cities. Noise Uprising is a polystylistic atlas that unravels a subterranean, cross-cultural network far away from, and with a wider reach than, traditional concert halls. Using Denning’s book as a starting point, Christopher Trapani plans to “fill in the map” by composing a series of pieces for four guitars and two singers, sometimes including live electronics. In studying these 78s as primary source documents, Trapani transcribes and transforms their musical gestures. These recordings will be in turn woven into electronic collages, often alongside his own field recordings, made on site in the cities where the source material originated, imagining alternative histories, fictive encounters and cross-pollinations between styles which in reality may never have intersected: gamelan meets tango, fado meets samba. With Noise Uprising Trapani uncovers hidden connections between geographically distant genres, but in doing so he always strives to create work that ultimately represents something more than a travelogue or a book of postcards. The short works he composes for this cycle will be meant to call into question notions of cultural appropriation and authenticity, to challenge rather than to romanticize notions of the exotic, and to draw attention to the dangers of “overtourism” and the unreflective, superficial consumption of place. 

The guitar, in all its possible variations, forms a common thread. But also the human voice plays a central role in Noise Uprising. We play a wide array of plucked string instruments, small percussions, shruti box, melodica, mbira, stroh-cello and much more.

Here are some pictures from the rehearsal studio: