RLLR.XXL
drumroll please: 50 percussionists in the center of Ghent
KASK & Conservatorium gathers 50 percussionists – from its own ranks and from other major conservatories in Europe – around a simple but ingenious concept by Julian Sartorius. They will join forces to activate the medieval centre of Gent with rolling drum patterns and analogue sound filtering. All conservatories will prepare the concept beforehand in their respective classes, and the students of the advanced master in contemporary music of KASK & Conservatorium will be responsible for the preparation of the filtering objects and the overall dramaturgy. They will be joined together in partial rehearsals at first and will rehearsal in full numbers two days before the concert.
The percussionists play a short drum pattern, a kind of groove repeated for 45 minutes, but constantly changing. The drummers all play in sync, as if it were 1 instrument. The 10 sound directors go around with wooden, metal and stone objects which they then place on the drums. As a result, the sound palette changes constantly and you never feel like you are listening to a repetition, even the percussionists, with their practised ears, feel like they are constantly hearing new things each time.
The concept was devised by Swiss jazz drummer Julian Sartorius. Each time it sounds completely different. Sometimes this is about cymbals being slid over those drums, but it could just as easily be about a piece of wood, a stick, a plank or a broken stone.
Participating conservatories
- KASK & Conservatorium (HOGENT – Howest)
- Conservatoire Liège
- POLITÉCNICO DO PORTO .ESMAE
- CNSMD Lyon | Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse
- Hochschule für Musik Freiburg
- Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln
- Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main
- Musikhochschule Lübeck