projects
Choir Piece by Felix Kindermann [2019-2020]
In staging the choir Ghent Singers as a moving sculpture, Felix Kindermann's 'Choir Piece' questions our relationship with the term togetherness, mirroring today's Zeitgeist along with its societal distortions. Through rearrangement, fragmentation, and techniques of acoustic distortion, the work creates a feeling of alienation, destabilizing the interrelated appearance and effect of the choir as a familiar cultural asset, blurring the lines which are dissolved through the play with essential opposites like harmony and disharmony, the individual and the collective.
American composer Natalie Dietterich’s commissioned score 'Composition for Separated Musicians' applies Kindermann's far reaching intervention on the coherent structure of the ensemble, such that its harmony remains intact. Using Kindermann's text, her composition allows for a permanent spatial modulation of the singers, whilst staying connected via acoustic set pieces, despite their actual spatial modulation. As the sound of the voices fills the volume of the unique locations, German choreographer Florian Fischer translates the themes of separation and connection into movements that play out over the entire exhibition space.
This work premiered in the Dhondt-Daenens Museum in Deurle in 2019, and was subsequently performed in S.M.A.K. Gent, KANAL-Centre Pompidou in Brussels and KIT Cafe in Düsseldorf.
Felix Kindermann , concept and text | Natalie Dietterich , composer
Florian Fischer, choreographer | Ivan Yohan, conductor
Raoul De Smet: Ecce Homo [2019]
In March 2019 the Ghent Singers premiered "Ecce Homo', a passion cantata, by Belgian composer Raoul De Smet, on a text by Dirk Blockeel. The performances were held in the Sint-Maartens church in Kortrijk and the Sint-Paulus church in Antwerp.
M-ensemble
Raoul De Smet, composer
Pascale Van Os, conductor
In December 2018 the Ghent Singers performed for the first time in Ghent, in the Sint-Paulus church. The Christmas concert included seasonal favourites such as Silent night.
Ivan Yohan, conductor
Sweet was the song [2018]
L'Enfant et les Sortilèges [2018]
The Ghent Singers's debut took place in December 2018. It consisted of three sold-out performances of Ravel's 'L'Enfant et les Sortilèges', alongside the Belgian National Orchestra, conducted by Otto Tausk.
Belgian National Orchestra
Soloists from the Flemish Opera Studio
Soloists from the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth
Helen Cassano, choir master
Jorinde Keesmaat, stage director
Otto Tausk, conductor
