hans van koolwijk's musical art

music that passes through something beautiful to look at. not a new idea, but the variation on that theme that dutch artist/musician hans van koolwijk has come up with really stretches the concept. playing with the generally accepted convention that a bamboo flute is a fragile thing of beauty, van koolwijk has created a veritable monster collection of bamboo flutes driven by all manner of confangled contraptions and doodads.

visitors to van koolwijk's site are treated to an image of what he calls "the bambuso" - essentially a collection of massive conjoined bamboo flutes. van koolwik says, "the bambuso is an unpolished sound sculpture that is sometimes used as a musical instrument, whereby the visual is closely related to the aural."

here's the bambuso in brussels.



here's a fragment of "wervelingen" a composition of hans van eck, performed by van koolwijk and gamelan-percussion ensemble gending in the marienkirche in torgau, and recorded in june of 2008.



as you'll have noticed in this except, the sound of the bambuso sonoro is loud and dramatic. "although it looks like he's improvising, his playing is carefully organised and aimed at exploiting the instrument's full potential. 'i have to organise it well and keep my head clear', he says. 'if i put too much emotion into my playing, it doesn't come across that well.'"

it may not be driven by emotion but it is certainly evocative music!!