Tijdkring 1990
TIJDKRING (TimeCircle), the third CIM festival has, in contrast to the two previous versions, a very differentiated and stratified theme.
In the first place, the CIM festival draws attention to and presents notable developments in Contemporary Improvised Music. European Structures, in 1990, showed a colourful succession of the very diverse interpretations in European improvised music as regards composition and improvisation and the degree of improvisational freedom within these. For Games, the 1993 festival, several commissions for compositions were given in order to investigate game structure in music. Both festivals paid attention to remarkable personalities: musicians, composers or band leaders who, in particular, represent themselves or a new trend. The presence of ensembles and groups was an ofshoot from this. Indeed, it is in jazz and improvised music that individuals have determined the developments of style.
In Tijdkring this line is carried further, though not in a simple way. An exceptional development in contemporary improvised music is the appearance of the ‘multifaceted musician’: the musician who, at a high level, composes, improvises and interprets the work of others.
In Tijdkringthe multi-faceted musicians George Lewis (USA), Barry (GB), Guus Janssen (NL), and the multi-faceted group LOOS (NL) are performing.
The organizers of the CIM festival asked the members of LOOS, who individually are involved in very different artistic areas, to put a programme together with the following guideline:
Can you, nowadays, speak of a movement comparable to Italian Futurism with its bruitistic and industrial sound art? And which musical expressions from now and the past do you associate with it?
The presentation of this question has led to a varied, experimental and adventurous programme, which passes over the ideathat festivals should occupy themselves with a single style or discipline. Does this make this festival futuristic, in a traditional or a new sense? Who or what determines new developments? What does the festival say about the future?
The festival is definitely a presentation of musicians, sound artists, writers, artists and composers who, at this moment, in all sorts of combinations, with all sort of means and in many forms, are occupied with the development of sound art, in whatever constellation and in relation to whatever:
computer-interactive music (George Lewis/USA and Leroy Jenkins/USA)
a sharp analytical and ‘humoristic’ style (the Guus Janssen Ensemble/NED)
astonishing virtuosity and variety (Barry Guy/GB)
the unpredictable (LOOS group around Peter van Bergen/NED)
electric-music theater (Paul Koek/NED)
a multimedia project (Domenico Sciajno/IT)
interactive computer-influenced music with folk-influences (Roberto Morales Manzaneras/MEX)
live electronic music (Huib Emmer/NED)
mechanical sound-performances (Voice Crack/SUI)
contemporary composed music (Gerard Bouwhuis/NED)
absurdistic tango music (El Rey del Corcho + guitarplayer/ARG)
installations (STEIM-Nic Collins/USA and Michel Waisvisz/NED)
electro-accoustic improvised music (Justin Bennett, Joal Ryan, Jane Henry/GB-USA)
lecture/performance (Ken Hollings/GB)
new developed music instruments (Hans Reichel/GER)
adventurous cooking art (Peter de Bie/BEL)
They give form to the present with a view to the future. The International, and within it the Dutch, the experimental world of music is alive and kicking. Doom-mongers, pessimists and conservative cultural radicalinskis have no place here now.
More than ever before, the dividing lines between composition and improvisation decline, and the barriers between the various disciplines. More than ever before is the use of multimedia common property. Never before have performing qualitiesat such a high level been gathered together in a few people and/or ensembles.
Tijdkring: a parade of international contemporary music culture, exciting, challenging, progressive and avers to conventions. In Tijdkring the power is in the imagination and by that in the future.
- Peter van Bergen, November 1995
