The Polish magazine on contemporary music and sound studies Glissando just published an article I wrote on Anthony Braxton’s Creative Orchestra. The overall theme of the magazine was “Diversity. Curating” and the issue was beautifully edited by Monika Zyla with amazing contributions by scholars and musicians from many backgrounds and perspectives. You can find the magazine here, available in print or digital. You can read the article here.
Darmstadt 2023
In August I had the incredible pleasure to spend two weeks at the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music. I had been to Darmstadt many times before, both as a participant and as a performer and I was familiar with the intense and rich artistic and social encounters that this international gathering of the new music community brings about. But this was a very special edition for me on a personal level since much of the research I’ve been doing over the past years on the music of composer Anthony Braxton came together during the intense but extremely rewarding two weeks of the summer course. Braxton himself was invited as one of the central guests of this year’s edition and I contributed with three projects. I co-curated a two-day international conference on Braxton’s music together with Timo Hoyer, which took place on august 8 and 9. Together with Braxton we led a workshop on his creative orchestra music with a 30+ creative orchestra of participants of the summer course. Lastly together with Ictus Ensemble we performed two sets of Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music together with dancers from the Rosas dance company, connecting Braxton’s musical system with the Rosas ‘toolbox’ of choreographic repertoire. Here are some pictures of each of these three events.
Anthony Braxton: 50+ Years of Creative Music
This international conference, the first one dealing with Braxton’s work, addressed a variety of topics which are central to Braxton’s work. An absolute highlight of the conference was a discussion between Anthony Braxton and George E. Lewis. There was a roundtable discussion with Tyshawn Sorey, Katherine Young, James Fei, Anne Rhodes and moderated by Paul Steinbeck in addition to several lectures by performers and leading researchers in the field (Timo Hoyer, Marc Hannaford, Paul Steinbeck, Nina Polaschegg, Katherine Young, Kyoko Kitamura, Anne Rhodes, Elisabeth Harnik, James Fei, Carl Testa and myself). Lastly there were two interactive workshops to give Summer Course participants a chance to directly engage with Braxton’s Creative Music.
Creative Orchestra Workshop
From august 11 to 14 we had 4 sessions of three hours with a creative orchestra of 30+ participants of the summer course to explore Braxton’s Creative Orchestra compositions. I brought in composition No. 151, Braxton worked on composition No. 100 and No. 59 and we also added No. 63. On the 15th we did a presentation of our workshop and were joined by Katherine Young as 3rd conductor in order to do a “Tri-Centric performance” of the Creative Orchestra music, featuring three conductors functioning simultaneously. The orchestra members had to choose which conductor to follow and ‘navigate’ their way through Braxton’s creative orchestra music in real time. As an interesting side note, one of the orchestra members was Tadashi Lewis, who played clarinet. His father, George E. Lewis, who was in the audience, premiered several of these compositions with Braxton back in 1976 (No. 59, No. 63). All pictures by (c) IMD / Kristof Lemp
Ghost Trance Music // Rosas Toolbox
This unique event brought together Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music with the choreographic repertoire from the Rosas dance company of Anne-Teresa Dekeersmaeker. Having spent a lot of time exploring Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music in different settings, the Brussels based Ictus ensemble asked me to lead a performance of Ghost Trance Music and closely collaborate with 4 dancers of the Rosas dance company, to look for parallels and ‘meeting points’ between the music of Braxton and Dekeersmaekers choreographies. This resulted in a very special evening at the Orangerie in Darmstadt, in the presence of the composer.
Rosas:
Sophia Dinkel
Marie Goudot
Mark Lorimer
Michaël Pomero
Ictus:
Nabou Claerhout (Trombone)
Niels Van Heertum (Euphonium)
Kobe Van Cauwenberghe (Electric Guitar)
Jean-Luc Plouvier (Keyboard)
guest musicians:
Katherine Young (Bassoon)
Andreas Borregaard (Accordion)
Press for Ghost Trance Septet Plays Anthony Braxton
Over the past months my latest release “Ghost Trance Septet Plays Anthony Braxton” received quite a bit of coverage and reviews, from blogs and magazines in the US, Canada, UK, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France and Scandinavia! Here’s a selection:
=> 2022 Album of the year, Avant Music News
=> Top 10 albums of the year, Free Jazz Blog
There’s a clear mastery of this often unwieldy material that’s almost giddy in its energy. Each of the four pieces, spread out over two CDs, is packed with detail and quick-blink episodes, delivering such densely crafted journeys that I hope others will follow suit and give Braxton’s pieces the treatment they deserve. - Best of Contemporary Classical on Bandcamp June 2022, P. Margasak
My own view is that Van Cauwenberghe and his septet have redefined the landscape of Braxton recordings.
- The Rambler, T. Rutherford-Johnson
Braxton's equations turn out to be readily accessible sounds if you leave your preconceptions about music and the nature of time at the door. Kobe Van Cauwenberghe's Ghost Trance Septet remembers both a Braxton future and a Ghost Trance past. - All About Jazz, M. Corroto
A festival of creativity, joy and surprise. - All About Jazz, J. Sharpe
Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton is one of the best interpretations of Braxton’s music yet by an ensemble not including Braxton himself. Very well done. - Avant Music News, M. Borella
The Ghost Trance Septet have created a blueprint in how to play this music. More crucially, by emphasizing each member’s talent as well as Braxton sequences, they’re come up with an original piece of work true to themselves and the composer. - Jazz Word, K. Waxman
[…] exceptionally rich music that certainly performs Braxton's music to the spirit. It is an ardent plea for a body of work that should reach the stage much more often. - Jazzflits (No. 382), H. te Loo
It is ensemble music at its best, at times leaning firmly on the chamber music tradition, but also steeped in jazz as an ongoing art of transformation. - Gonzo (Circus), G. Peters
Great, inspiring performance. - Salt Peanuts, E. Hareuveni
Highly Recommended - Jazz Special (No. 182, 2022), T.S. Høeg
[…] a delight to both those with an ear for classical and those preferring a freer form of playing. […] The recording feels like an immersion; the music washes over the listener in waves, cleansing and pure. It is a stream of consciousness that emanates from the musicians, serving as a guide between that which is known and the unknown. Clear guidance to form is tempered beautifully with an allowance for freedom that this kind of music gives. There is a sense of connection to the past, a sense of being very much in the present and with the future. Listening to this music is an experience, not an act, and Braxton creates a sense of endless potential. The Free Jazz Collective, S. Stein
It is pretty rare for other ensembles to perform their own versions of Mr. Braxton’s compositions and even rare for anyone to do Ghost Trance Music. (...) After listening to the first disc, I will admit that this is some of the best versions of Ghost Trance Music that I’ve heard. Absolutely superb on all levels. - The Downtown Music Gallery NY, B. L. Gallanter
Mr. Van Cauwenberge’s septet – comprising musicians similarly attuned to Mr Braxton’s radical-speak – excel in their interpretations of the four works involved. (…) [A] marvelous musical architecture (…) Inside this dramatically expressive music is an altogether other kind of beauty exclusive to the music of Mr Braxton. (…) These recordings speak to the breakout of Kobe Van Cauwenberge – a musician with a fertile imagination capable penetrating virtually anything a composer might throw at him. - JazzdaGama, R. Da Gama
A wonderful achievement that will once again allow us to appreciate the idiosyncratic approach of this great American composer. - Citizen Jazz, F. Barriaux
How does one play Braxton? (…) This CD offers a convincing answer to this question. - Neue Zeitung für Music, D. Heißenbüttel
The Ghost Trance Septet hasn't just made an enjoyable (and very much so) record for the current moment; they've contributed to the future critical assessment of a musical mind as important as Ellington and Riddle on the one hand and Stockhausen and Xenakis on the other. - The New York City Jazz Record, Kurt Gottschalk
For a more complete overview click here.
Gonzo (Circus) also published a very nice double interview with James Fei and me. The interview is in Dutch, you can download it here.
Georges Tonla Briquet wrote a fine contribution in the Dutch magazine Jazzism. One would almost think with all this that I am a jazz musician, but the headline of this article somewhat contradicts this. 🙃 The point here is that it may be high time to discard artificial genre categories and just talk about the music itself.... Braxton's music would certainly benefit from it.
The album is available through el Negocito Records. LP’s have finally arrived!!
Ghost Trance Septet @ Visitations IV + more praise for our release
On december 9 and 10 we had the wonderful opportunity to play 4 different sets of Anthony Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music at Rataplan in Antwerp, as part of the Visitations residency-series by Sound In Motion. Below are some wonderful shots of the second evening (by Joachim Ceulemans).
In addition to this our recent release Ghost Trance Septet plays Anthony Braxton (eNR105) keeps receiving positive praise from international press! Raul da Gama wrote a long feature on his blog JazzdaGama, praising both my solo and septet releases of Braxton’s Ghost Trance Music:
“Both these recordings speak to the breakout of Kobe Van Cauwenberge – a musician with a fertile imagination capable penetrating virtually anything a composer might throw at him.”
Bruce Lee Gallanter praised the septet release in his latest newsletter for Downtown Music Gallery, New York:
“After listening to the first disc, I will admit that this is some of the best versions of Ghost Trance Music that I’ve heard. Absolutely superb on all levels.”
Lastly Mark Corroto gave it an honorary mention in his best of 2022 list for All About Jazz (“I've been continually spinning the Ghost Trance Septet Plays Anthony Braxton”)
Anthony Braxton's Gambit in DE SINGEL
We’re already a month later, but it’s with great pleasure that I’m looking back to the wonderful Anthony Braxton celebration in DE SINGEL in Antwerp on june 5th, with some great shots by Dawid Laskowski and Geert Vandepoele!
The event included an exposition with excerpts of Braxton’s unique graphic scores, photos and a mini-documentary. Lectures by Timo Hoyer and James Fei. And an evening concert featuring:
Creative Orchestra Music performed by a fantastic student orchestra of the Royal Conservatory Antwerp (and incidentally my conducting debut).
Ghost Trance Septet performing Composition No. 255 (with Anna Sakham Jalving, Frederik Sakham Jalving Lomborg, Steven Delannoye, Niels Van Heertum, Elisa Medinilla, João Lobo and yours truly)
Anthony Braxton quartet (with James Fei, Chris Jonas, Ingrid Laubrock, Anthony Braxton)
