LOOS artistic researchers 2023
-
Leslee Smucker (1986) is a musician utilizing violin, voice, synthesizers, electronics, film, and poetry. Her work focuses on ideas surrounding sound perception, phenomenological spatial relationships, anachronisms, language, and the human/machine relationship. Solo performances include The Scottish Library (presented by University of Edinburgh’s Cantos Project), the Andriessen Festival in Arnhem, NL, Project Audire in Portugal, and Interference Series in Flagstaff. For composition, she was awarded a commission from Gaudeamus for Michela Amici in 2022 for harp and transducers. She has presented her research at the 20th Biennial International Conference on Ninetheeth-Century Music in Huddersfield, UK, and given artistic research lecture-performances at Brancaleoni International Festival and University of Virginia. She is lecturer in music at University of Colorado Boulder. Fellowships include a Barnes Fellow in Philadelphia with artist in residence JACK quartet, as well as a fellow in Ensemble Evolution 2021 with International Contemporary Ensemble.
Artistic Research: They Say It’s New
-
Kaat Vanhaverbeke (born 2000) is a young accordionist from Belgium, who is currently doing her Master of Music at The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. Her focus in music-making is personal expression and authentic communication with an audience. She actively wants to involve space and listeners in musical experiences. As a versatile musician, she is open-minded toward new artistic experiments, always bringing her beloved instrument to the foreground. Besides performing as a soloist and in theatrical work, she is currently engaged in various ensembles, among which is the Spaceship Ensemble. Additionally, she works as a freelance composer – enrolled in a minor study program composition at the Royal Conservatoire since 2021.
Artistic Research: Extra-dimensional accordion playing using a surround sound system
-
Since childhood, I have been fascinated by media. Together with my sister, we played all kinds of computer games, visited museums and developed films with friends. So I learned the tricks of making and thinking up creative new productions. At the moment, I want to walk my creative path a bit more, as I inherited it from my extraordinary father, multimedia artist Victor Wentink. I am working on a documentary series: "Encounters from the Heart" and I am working on my own enterprise: HEARTEC, in which I look for the connection between art, society, and technology. This combination will hopefully lead to new media productions such as documentaries, new kind of computer games and perhaps artworks or artificial intelligence designs.
-
Baidar Al Basri is an Iraqi singer residing in The Netherlands. She comes from a large musical family of are composers, singers, and musicians. She studied Arabic singing, ballet, and theater in Syria. Her studies opera she finished at the Royal Conservatory in The Netherlands. Baidar Al-Basri has received many honors and awards, most notably the title Voice of Religions, which was granted to her by the younger sister of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, princess Margriet. She also won the International Peace Prize in Germany. Baidar has perfomed solo concerts with many international Orchestras of which the most important is the Metropole Orchestra, where she sang four musical works that were specifically composed for her by the Dutch composer Theo Hoek.
-
Active as an autonomous artist since 1984. Mainly focusing on animation, video, drawing and graphical arts.
Co-operating with musicians, composers, ensembles: a.o. Chiel Meyering, Maarten Altena, Delta Ensemble, Oene van Geel, ERAX, Peter van Bergen, GJ Prins Thomas Lehn, Loos, pdq^d.
During live-(impro)performances making use of film-projectors, beamer, live-drawing, installation. Animation work has been shown and awarded internationally. Occasionally teaching a.o. : G. Rietveld Ac, Film Ac, Vrije Ac, NIAF, Ac v Bouwkunst, Cal Arts and in workshops for children. Future plans: sound & image (streaming)project at LOOS studio. Develop new animations in combination research old & new media.
-
Elif Gülin Soğuksu is an Istanbul based composer, sound artist and performer of electronics and voice. She holds her BA in composition and audio technology at Istanbul Bilgi University Music Department and now currently pursuing her MA at the Sonology Institute of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.She holds a Bachelor's in music from the Institute of Sonology where she is finishing her Master's degree.
Since 2021, nezri carries out her compositional activities at Studio Loos in collaboration with other instrumentalists and expands her recording/ sound engineering skills during concerts.
Artistic Research: Voice as an abstract instrument
-
Farzaneh is an Iranian musician, researcher, and sound artist based in The Netherlands. Interested in experimental approaches to sound, science, and technology, she explores various disciplines such as electroacoustic music composition, computer science, cybernetics, and linguistics. As tools in her artistic practice, she uses creative coding, field recording, live electronics, as well as acoustic and programmable instruments. Her recent pieces investigate complex systems, natural algorithms, and human-machine interaction. Farzané composes for live performances, interactive installations, films, VR and multi-sensory experiences. The focus of her current research is on artificial intelligence methods in the framework of live electroacoustic music improvisation.
Artistic Research: The Aesthetic Qualities of Machine Behaviours
-
Lucie Nezri (FR/NL) is drawn to abstraction and simplicity. her work bridges different contexts and disciplines pertaining to musical composition, tuning theory, computer science, and, at times, choreography. She enjoys exploring probabilistic methods of composition in a diversity of ways, from pieces for computer and classical instrumentation to fixed media, multichannel compositions, and dance performances.
She holds a Bachelor's in music from the Institute of Sonology, where she is finishing her Master's degree.
Since 2021, Nezri has carried out her compositional activities at Studio Loos in collaboration with other instrumentalists and expands her recording/ sound engineering skills during concerts.
Artistic Research: for siblings
-
Alberto Novello a.k.a. JesterN’s practice repurposes found or decontextualised analogue devices to investigate the connections between light and sound in the form of contemplative installations and performances.
His works have been presented at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museo Reina Sofia Madrid, Amsterdam Dance Event, Venice Biennale , to mention a few.
He graduated in Nuclear Physics at the University of Trieste, completed the master Art Science Technologies with Jean Claude Risset, obtained a PhD degree at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven with Armin Kohlrausch, and graduated in Electronic Music at the Institute of Sonology, Royal Conservatory of Den Haag. He worked for Texas Instruments, Philips Research, and Auro Technologies creating software for their audio applications.
He has assisted Alvin Lucier, David Behrman, Nicholas Collins and Trevor Wishart. He has improvised with Evan Parker, Butch Morris, Karl Berger. He was invited professor at Sussex University, MICA Baltimore, SAIC Chicago, Tallin University, Den Haag Conservatory, Turin Conservatory, IEM Graz, Champaign-Urbana University, CMMAS Mexico among others.
Artistic Research: Audio-Driven Laser Performance
-
As both a composer and singer, Kristin Norderval is inspired by hybridity, interactivity and the idea that everything we do is site-specific. She blends acoustic and electronic sound, is fascinated with de-tuned instruments, machines, and ambient sound. In her solo works for voice and electronics she processes her voice in real time often combining it with prerecorded sounds to create complex sonic layers and unusual soundscapes.
Artistic Research: Bodies of Sound
-
Liza Kuzyakova is a composer, performer, researcher, and curator from Moscow, based in The Netherlands. Grounding her sound practice in between multichannel electro-acoustic composition and live performance, her work relates to sonic deconstruction and histories of sound in the instrumental space, traces and distortions of material. With a passion for extremes of music, she is an active member of the experimental music scene in The Hague, where she curates a series of live performance events - KRAH. Her solo musical project Sáof originates around piercing sonic realms of drone/noise, and she is half of Tselem Enosh, an industrial/power electronics duo.
Liza is a frequent collaborator of Amos Peled and has presented her works in a variety of contexts including contemporary dance, performance art, short films, and exhibitions such as Gaudeamus Festival, Rewire Festival, NDT, iii, Grey Space in the Middle, and Buda BXL.
Artistic Research: Sonic ruins. Contemplations on fragmentation in experimental music.
-
Viktoria Nikolova is a singer, performer and creator from Sofia, Bulgaria, currently based in the Netherlands. She obtained a Master’s in classical singing at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in 2017. She specialised in Bulgarian folklore singing as an artistic researcher during that time. She collaborates with various composers and ensembles in the Netherlands and abroad, often crossing between folklore and classical music fields. She is pursuing a degree in cultural sciences at Leiden University, where, she is a co-president of Kunstgang Commission gallery space.
In 2019 at Grachtenfestival, Viktoria’s author performance, “Metamorphosis of a Female Character,” was awarded the Themaprijs and Oorkaanprijs. Between 2018 - 2022 Viktoria took part in the Opera Forward Festival, Westben Online Residency, and Plop Festival, among others. She was part of the internship program NKK NXT 19/20. Since 2020 she has been developing author and collective projects with artists and musicians in multi-disciplinary environments. Her work overlaps topics of, mediation in artistic processes and seeks liminality between digital and physical spaces interwoven with body and vocal improvisation. The main themes of her current artistic research are identity, and transnationalism in the Balkans. more info
Artistic Research: IOM-AIM
Photography by: Marijn Goes
-
Johan van Kreij is a sonologist. His practice covers the fields of composing, improvising, making and executing in the field of experimental electro-acoustic music. Both working independently and in cooperation with various artists, he has been involved in a wide variety of projects in the field of improvised music, music theatre, dance, architecture and installation-art. His current collaborations involve the research into quasi-autonomous improvisation systems, the rethinking of generative synthesis models and the development of stepper-motor control approaches. Furthermore, he teaches at the Institute of Sonology and is member of the new LOOS Ensemble.
-
The Brazilian interdisciplinary composer Cristiano Melli (1980) studied in São Paulo with Almeida Prado, Osvaldo Lacerda and Jocy de Oliveira. Since 2010 in The Hague, he holds a Bachelor and Master degrees in Composition, having Yannis Kyriakides, Calliope Tsoupaki, Cornelis de Bondt, Gilius van Bergeijk and Peter Adriaansz as teachers. Since 2019 he is part of the Senior Researcher Artistic team of Studio LOOS in The Hague, producing HERTZ, PERSEPHONE ZOOMED, a concert portrait and instalments of the EROLA series. Further projects are the queer multimedia cycles QUEENS and LEENDERT, both in production phase.
Photograpg by: Marjolein van Rotterdam
-
Cornelis de Bondt Composer [from 1975], teacher of music theory at KC [from 1987], research, aesthetics and composition [from 2004]
Composition, research, education and political activism ultimately come together under the heading "The Technique of Beauty". The central question is "Is it possible to formulate criteria for an artistic quality judgment beyond the personal taste judgment?" This question is addressed in all facets of my practice, composition, research, text, education, political action. [Politics ”seen in a broader context: concerning the policy.]
Current project: "The Man of Sorrows", a double opera in which all my work comes together.
-
Olaf Tarenskeen is one of the few Dutch musicians to have been trained in classical music as well as in jazz and improvised music.
In addition to being a classical guitarist in the beginning, he has an extensive background as a performer of modern music. During his career jazz playing and modern notated music existed simultaneously but separately. In a later stage trying to find blending these genres which seemed more possible using the adjusted classical guitar. This blending, not particularly as borrowing material and putting them together but in a sense of transforming materials and executing attitude allowing popular elements in complex settings and classical sensibilities in popular settings.
Seeing the guitar as a ‘multi-faced’ instrument but rooted in an inescapable background of jazz.
Performing in these separate genres and teaching on all levels and ages, became the agent of conduct to start a research of the Classical Guitar in contemporary Jazz at this moment in the context of research Lab : Loos Artistic Research Group in The Hague.
Latest activity : A Voice and Guitar CD Projekt titled 'Blue Light' containing 10 original compositions by Yvonne Smeets and Tarenskeen, with lyrics by Smeets and (guitar) arrangements by Tarenskeen.
-
Giorgio Zangarini is an Italian composer/sound artist based in The Hague. He is currently studying in the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. In his artistic practices, Giorgio focuses mainly on: creative coding, sound design and electroacoustic composition.
Artistic Research: Mr. White: A Musical and Gaming Experience
-
Danya Pilchen’s music is closely intertwined with his research into collective experiences of time in musical practices. Understanding time as an emerging property of consciousness affected by social interactions necessitates increased attention to the relationships between musicians and audiences in his pieces. To facilitate these interactions, he employs various compositional strategies and listening techniques engaging the materiality of sound. This practice revolves around Songs, an ongoing series of chamber pieces on which he has been working since September 2019.
-
Leah Plave is an American artist, who edges past the traditional role of a cellist, performing not only classical repertoire but jazz, contemporary, experimental, non-western, and early music. Leah has lived and toured extensively across Canada, China, Europe, and the USA as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborator. Leah was a featured guest speaker for Australia's Curve Magazine Festival, the Berkshire High Peaks Music Festival, and a performer at festivals such as FIMU (Belfort), Thy Chamber Music Festival, The Banff Centre, Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, Garth Newel Music Centre, and Manchester Music Festival.
Her academic studies concluded in The Netherlands, where she earned a Master Degree in baroque cello performance and classical cello at the Royal Conservatoire Den Haag.
-
Composer, performer and radio-maker raised in Germany and the US, now based in The Hague, Netherlands. Leonie captures her environment through field recordings, which she uses for electronic live sets, sound installations, and compositions for soloists and ensembles. She had recent residencies at New Media Society and Limited Access Festival (Iran), Forum Wallis (Switzerland), and The Story of Space Festival (India), and Berlin Circus Biennale (Germany), and Altes Finanzamt (Germany), and at LOOS (Netherlands). Her works have been released through Musica Dispersa (Spain/UK), and Noise á Noise (Iran,) Biodiversità Records, and Syrphe Label, and have been physically archived in the British Library. Leonie established the radio branch of LOOS with the Radio LOOS program and is creating features about different aspects of sound art and art radio, and with that connecting communities.
Artistic Research: Radio LOOS
-
Sean Bell is a countertenor and performance artist from Oslo. He holds a Master’s degree in early music voice from the Royal Conservatoire The Hague (NL), and a Bachelor’s degree in from the Norwegian academy of Music. His work centre mainly on chamber and sacred music and opera, yet also includes a focus on new ideas and methods of interpreting classical and contemporary repertoire. Through sonic imaginations and arrangements, he explores this repertoire in new ways. This has led him to a series of collaborations and solo performances on the border line between classical music and performance art. In 2021 he made his debut at Høstutstillingen (the Norwegian state’s annual exhibition) with his performance work Stille Amare (2021).
Bell also works with contemporary music and has premiered several pieces for countertenor. Bell is an active improviser, plays baroque guitar and engages in instrument building and music electronics.
Artistic Research: Avoiding and affirming definition
-
Tilen Lebar (b. 1993) is a Slovenian composer and a saxophonist based in The Hague the Netherlands. He is actively enrolled in the field of chamber music, as well as is premiering new works of young composers. Moreover, Tilen is actively participating in the field of improvised music scene and interdisciplinary arts and regulary cooperates with Zavod Sploh, KUD Mreza, Ensemble Szene Istrumental, CONA | institute for contemporary arts processing, Inexhaustible editions, and also presents his own individual projects with Ensemble Stere, which Tilen founded in 2017. His compositions are showing great knowledge of individual instrumental extended techniques as well as contemplated colors, detailed structures in sound tinctures, all of those expressing in his personal view in introverted musical approach. His collaborations included ensembles as Asamisimasa from Oslo, Experimental studio of SWR Freiburg and ensemble Oerknal among others. During his studies at University in Ljubljana he has been a recipient of a Golden scholarship by Municipality of Murska Sobota (Slovenia), scholarship by University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (Austria), Foundation PIF (Slovenia), Foundation Benko (Slovenia) and is currently a recipient of the scholarship by the Ministry of Culture Republic of Slovenia for his postgraduate studies at Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Since 2019 he is an active member of Society of Slovene Composers (DSS).
-
Peter van Bergen is artistic and business director of LOOS. He is a composer, improviser, interpreter and PhD researcher at the Free University of Brussels in the field of interdisciplinary experimental new music. He founded LOOS in 1982 and Studio LOOS in 2005. His research concerns "Improvisation, Interactivity, Instability: Artistic Transformations" (IOMAIM Research) in which improvisation between people is transformed into collaboration between man and machine. As an improviser, he worked with musicians such as Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton. As a composer he wrote for mainly the legendary LOOS Ensemble, various soloists, ASKO Schoenberg, the Volharding. He also worked closely with numerous composers and artists such as Louis Andriessen, Cornelis de Bondt, Huib Emmer, Martijn Padding, Gilius van Bergeijk, Guus Janssen, Paul Koek, Johan Simons, Krisztina de Chatel, Karin Post, Wim T. Schippers, Titus Muizelaar.
Artistic Research: IOM-AIM
-
Huib Emmer is a Dutch composer, performer, who played bass guitar in Hoketus, played percussion guitar in Loos, also composed for these groups. He created many pieces for ensembles after his conservatory days in the 1970s. In the 1990s his interest shifted towards electronics, early techno showed that with relatively simple equipment you could really turn the world upside down by giving regularity a new face, which appealed to Huib as an old avantgardist. Since then, he worked on projects combining electronics with acoustic instruments, as well as several projects with electronics and live film/multimedia. Since 2021 an electronic duo with Guus Janssen: the coarse grain.