Results for "minimalism"

Jef Neve

Born: March 8, 1977

CAREER

• After Jef Neve graduated “cum laude” in 2001 for piano in both the classical and jazz departments, as well as for chamber music, at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven, he soon made his first jazz albums with the Jef Neve Trio. Since 2006 he signed with the major record label Universal Music and his career took an international turn.
• With the 'Jef Neve Trio' he makes successful tours, from Denmark to Australia, from Canada to Japan.
• The collaboration with Gabriel Rios and Kobe Proesmans resulted in a series of great performances during 2008. Rios again asked Jef Neve to collaborate on compositions for his CD “The Dangerous Return” which was released at the end of 2010.
• In 2009 he toured through Flanders with his first piano concerto, with the Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by Michel Tabachnik.
• The CD “Face to Face” of the Duo with vibraphonist Pascal Schumacher was released in January 2010 on Enja Records. The duo made a 'Rising Star Tour' along a dozen important European venues. Jef Neve also contributed to Pascal Schumacher's albums.
• Also in 2010 he made the album “For all we know” together with the American singer José James, and the Impulse label was restarted especially for this album. This album took them to just about every major jazz festival worldwide, from Japan, Canada and America, to all of Europe.
• Jef Neve was asked by the National Belgian Radio VRT-Klara to make a weekly jazz program. Between January 2008 and August 2010, the program "Neve" was recorded live and broadcast every Friday night.
• In February 2012, Neve wrote the music for the theater production 'De Tocht van de Olifant' by Stefan Perseval with the actors Sien Eggers and Marc van Eeghem.
• In 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018, Jef Neve is the curator of the 'Neve Festival' in the Warande at the cultural center de Warande in Turnhout, where he was given carte blanche to program the whole weekend.
• In 2012 he toured through Flanders with his 2nd piano concerto, accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dirk Brossé.
• During the 2014 edition of Leuven Jazz, Jef Neve was still the great trendsetter with a unique occasional combo including Richard Galliano and Dré Pallemaerts. Neve was also present in the 2015 edition.
• Jamie Cullum, England's best-known and most talented jazz artist, invited Jef Neve to play music together at the North Sea Jazz Club in Amsterdam on 24 November 2014.
• Jamie also took the time to interview Jef extensively for his radio show, on which Jef also brought his film crew to interview Jamie for Café Corsari, where he was a guest during the 2014-2015 season.

• 'Piano meets hip-hop': In 2016, 2017 and 2018 Jef already played several concerts with the famous Dutch rapper Typhoon. The Tour with Typhoon and Amsterdam Sinfonietta at the end of 2017 and spring 2018 was a resounding success.
• Spirit Control: this album was presented in 2017, this time with an extensive band. Jens Bouttery on drums, Lennart Heyndels on bass and a string quartet join Jef Neve on stage.

• Jef Neve conducted his own orchestra at Pukkelpop 2018 and played 'The 4 Seasons', adapted by Max Richter at Pukkelpop, the Nevefestival 2018 and ‘Lekker Klassiek’ 2018, of which he was the artistic director.
• Since 2019, Jef has been playing in duo with the famous trumpeter Teus Nobel, in Kenya, Canada, Japan, Czech Republic, Latvia. In 2022 the concerts were a homage to Toots Thielemans with the subtitle 100 years Toots, , which he would have turned 100 years old on 29/04/2022. In February 2023 they were guests in Hungary
• duo concerts with the Dutch top trumpeter Teus Nobel, at home and abroad.
• In recent years, Jef has also focused more and more on composing. In 2021 he wrote 3 piano books: “Start”, “2” and “Play for the 3 different degrees in the music academies. There is also a deluxe edition, “Sharing Life Stories”: a collection of the 3 books, in combination with illustrations by Oswald Cromheecke. All compositions are 2x on Youtube, 1x in the "concert version" played by Jef, 1x in a "tutorial version" where Jef explains the difficulties per song. There is the accompanying solo album on Spotify, Sharing Life Stories.
• In 2022 he again composed 2 piano books: "Reflections in Black and Reflections in White", in addition to the previous 3 books. These new books will be fully presented by Jef in the various music schools in the spring of 23.
• Jef Neve composed the next album “Mysterium”, which was released in August 2020. It was supposed to be released in March 2020, but the lockdown due to the corona pandemic decided otherwise.
• During the 2020 corona year, Jef Neve focused on live streaming from his own studio. He delivered no less than 150 live streamed concerts, first on Facebook, then on his own new subscriber website, www.jefneve-live.com, where people could register per series of 10 concerts. This continued until spring 2021.
• In the summer of 2020 and the summer of 2021 he performed “Ochtendglorenconcerten”, with soprano Hanne Roos, saxophonist Andy Dhondt and a string quintet. Neo-classical and minimalist music performed outdoors at dawn.
• In the autumn and winter of 2021, Jef played several concerts: “Jef Neve plays with you”, in which Jef improvised on stories that the audience provided.
• The “Mysterium tour” was finally kicked off with a headliner concert at Gent Jazz in July 2021, before touring throughout Flanders and the Netherlands from September to the end of December 2022.
• In March 2023: release of the documentary film “Rebound”, the story of Sebastien Bellin, the former basketball player who was seriously injured in the attack on the airport on March 22, 2016.
• April 21, 2023: release of his new album “That Old Feeling” an album on which Jef invites 8 international singers to sing a song with him. The first live shows in large venues are planned for May 2023.

Minimalism

By Greg Osby

Label: Inner Circle Music
Released: 2023
Track listing: 1. Minimalism 2, Thank You For Your Time 3. I Forgive You 4. Once Known 5. Dedicato 6. Journey 7. Facets Squared 8. Youwan 9. Neshama

Fluidian

Born: August 6, 1973

Fluidian (Emil Gherasim, b. 1973) composer, musician, sound artist. His work includes electroacoustic and electronic art music, chamber music, film and theatre music, sound illustrations for contemporary dance and visual performances, minimalist textural music, sound paintings and ambient soundscapes.
His music is very personal and deeply meditative, with huge visual emotions, combining minimalist sound textures with a specific manner of improvisation. Due to his playing techniques like wind-guitar (blowing across the strings) or bowed-guitar (using a violin bow), manipulated with electronics and using his own minimalistic textural concept, his music transforms into a contemplative, floating sound journey.
Initially self-taught, he studied and graduated in music composition, mentored by award-winning composer Ede Terényi, at the Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Fluidian is best known for his solo performances, but has also been collaborate with artists like Arve Henriksen, Tibor Szemző, László Gőz, Ede Terényi, Petre Ionuțescu, Paul Taylor, Sándor Szabó, Roland Heidrich and many more.
In addition, he composes original music for theater plays, dance performances, films and new textural electronic art music for different sound ensembles.

Among his collaborative projects from the last years could be highlighted the "Opaque Lights" album created in collaboration with Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen, "Pendular Emotions" album with Romanian trumpeter Petre Ionuțescu and a soundtrack co-written with Arve Henriksen for Anastasia Isachsen's audio-visual light art installation "Perspective" premiered at Fjord Oslo Light Art Festival, Norway.

Ascetic

Active since: 2019

Ascetic is a band founded in 2019 on the initiative of clarinetist and saxophonist Mateusz Rybicki, accompanied by Tomasz Kaczmarek (piano), Ju Ghan (double bass) and Jan Słowiński (drums). "After years in which the main area of my musical search was free improvisation and free jazz, I felt the need to explore simplicity and tonality. It also overlapped with the time of my spiritual search. I wanted the music I play to draw from those experiences, bring peace and solace to the audience and was a form of contemplation and prayer. I invited musicians who's sound and personality were the most suited to this concept" - recalls the musician. The sound of Ascetic is very characteristic, in the band's work you can hear the fascination with many genres and the desire to create music clearly going beyond the jazz idiom. "I think that the main direction and the underlying idea of this music is a certain self-limitation in striving for maximum mindfulness and searching for a deep, spiritual charge. This is true both at the level of our intentions and purely formal procedures - most of the songs are based on modal scales and trancy repetitive grooves. We also wanted a certain universalism and reaching the widest possible audience," the artist continues. The group's main inspirations include the John Coltrane quartet, the music of Hildegard of Bingen, Gregorian chant, American minimalists such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley, as well as the band The Necks. Most of the songs on Ascetic's debut album grew out of ideas and sketches proposed by Rybicki, but the final shape of the composition is the result of intensive work of the entire line-up: "I am very grateful to my bandmates for their commitment and the possibility of such systematic and in-depth work both on the arrangement and sound level. We put a lot of work and time into the creation of this material, looking for different forms of expression and testing arrangement solutions. There are also several songs on the album that were born during improvisation in the studio" - sums up the musician.

Mikkel Borrisholt Grevsen

Born: July 21, 1987

Grevsen has been playing music since he was 7 years old. Started in a marching band on bariton horn and trumpet. He spent the first 13 years of his musical career in the marching band and gained a great knowledge of the brass genre. Graduated from the Rhythmic Music Conservatory from 2009-2015. In 2011 he won the Danish Youth Jazz Competition with the trash-jazz band “Interfoam”. Later on, the band published “Breeding”. Composer and musician at spoken word-projects: “Rystet Spejl. Musik og poesi” (Gyldendal / Sony Music, 2013), “POWER” (Gyldendal / Sony Music, 2016) and “I vintersolen” (Blue Blitz Music, 2022) by Søren Ulrik Thomsen & Det Glemte Kvarter. In 2019 he released “Når nogen rammer jorden” (Tambourhinoceros) with INTET ALTID. He has done projects with the Aarhus Sinfonietta and the string ensemble Who Killed Bambi.

Denis Krupin

Born: November 12, 1971

Denis Krupin was born on November 12, 1971, in Leningrad. At the age of six he began to play the guitar and studied classical and jazz guitar in the city of Leningrad. I learned to play the piano on my own. He played in various rock bands. Since 2012, he has focused only on studio work.

From Medieval to Live Evil: We're All Minimalists Now

by Kurt Ellenberger
March 19, 2020

A Brief History of the Minimalist Aesthetic Minimalism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity."  Musically speaking, this translates to a few characteristics common to most pieces: Slow-moving or static harmony;Small number of repetitive and simple rhythmic figures; ...

Samuel Hällkvist

The ocean vibrates, electric arteries branch out and down, a recursive bifurcation filling the sea, new neural networks replicating at an incomprehensible pace. You are fully sound and light, you are ever- changing patterns, you are swelling and collapsing rhythms, you are overlapping sequences of numbers. An infinity of possibilities. New languages form. A thousand eyes see. A million hearts beat in sympathetic polyrhythms. And then there is no you at all. There is only this moment. One endless moment. And this moment is all there ever was. The sound. The light. The consciousness you named Self