Rick van Veldhuizen & Seung-Won Oh

sep 14th, 2024, 4.30pm – Bruckner Casco Festival

What to expect?

New piece by Rick van Veldhuizen: Bruckner cancelled this symphony because a well-known conductor couldn’t find a theme. Rick will rearrange this symphony so that none of the material seems recognizable… until the undetected theme gloriously appears, played by guitars, saxophones, and electronics. Listen to Unde Imber et Ignes to get a taste of what you will hear.

New piece by Seung-Won Oh: She interprets Bruckner 4 as a spellbinding ritual based on a great variety of percussion, referring to Bruckner’s expansive sound. Brace yourself for a spellbinding mix of East and West. Listen to Seung-Won’s YeonDo to get a taste of what you will hear.

Rick van Veldhuizen & Bruckner 0

In the creation of Rick’s works, there is a desire to achieve something unique, something uncompromising. Rick wants to captivate you into his world by seducing and shocking you. In doing so, Rick imposes obsessive demands on his performers, which also intrigues and raises questions about how the result will sound.

Rick on his new composition: Nulls & Voids

Nulls and Voids will be a radical reworking of material from Bruckner’s “Null” symphony, which he invalidated during his lifetime and therefore was only performed in 1924—100 years before “Bruckner Casco.” The piece will thus be about musical memory and association: all the material in the symphony essentially becomes a “found object” in Nulls and Voids, but also the genesis of the work and Bruckner’s biography play a part as found objects. Bruckner “annulled” the “Null” following a comment by conductor Otto Dessof, who couldn’t recognize a theme. Precisely because of this, it seems like a challenge to revalue the less lyrical material as lyrical and make the more lyrical material more aggressive. 

Seung-Won Oh & Bruckner 4

Her music has been performed across Europe, North America, and Asia, transcending traditional boundaries. Seung-Won connects East and West, vibrant movement and stillness, pure sound and ritual theatre, layered structures and transparency. The conflict between the will of the individual and the demands of the collective is a recurring theme in her work. Her growing interest in theatre, space, movement, and audience interaction has led to projects requiring close collaboration with performers. Recently, she won the Kees van Baaren Prize.

Seung-Won on her new composition

‘In my 45-minute new work, I want to create a personal reflection and reaction to this monumental symphonic work by reworking my own musical language in the tint of Bruckner’s musical spirit. The intricate relationship of musical themes used throughout the Fourth Symphony is one of the main components for achieving the coherence of this gigantic work. I intend to approach these close thematic relationships – based on the first version (1874) – as the driving force of my compositional creation.’

Read more on brucknercasco.nl

The concert:

Ensemble Klang (photo Jasper van Gheluwe)

Inspired by Bruckner 0 + 4

Ensemble Klang + New European Ensemble

Sat 14 Sep 2024 16:30 - 18:40