Sounding Here: Katrien Gaelens, Rachel Beckles Willson & Kotkamp + Magnúsdóttir

Sounding Here is a platform for experiments in any genre, welcoming all kinds of sound-worlds, curated by Christine Cornwell. We welcome our audience to step into the unknown and witness live art and performance which is alive and kicking!

Catching my Breath
Katrien Gaelens – flutes

We all breathe, up to 20,000 times a day. Fortunately, mostly unconsciously, but sometimes your breath falters, you run out of breath or hyperventilate. Katrien Gaelens explores the vocabulary of breathing and experiments with the sound and performance possibilities of breathing on flutes.

Warning: The performance can include strong and fast breathing which may seem like hyperventilation.
As sounds of all sorts trigger Katrien’s brain she is constantly looking for a new sound world, whether it is through contemporary music or old music on period instruments. Katrien studied the flute and baroque flute in Ghent, Brussels and Strasbourg with flute maestros Carlos Bruneel and Mario Caroli. During her studies she was inspired at master classes and summer courses like the Lucerne Festival Academy with Pierre Boulez, the Ictus Studio and Centre Acanthes Metz. She is a founding member of Nadar Ensemble and co-artistic director of GLoW Collective and shares the love for her instruments teaching the flute and baroque flute.Growing up at the seaside she loves long walks on the beach and fighting the waves. Breathing is as important while playing the flute as on her yoga mat and in daily life. She is a certified breathwork instructor and always reminds her friends to remember to breathe.

Resounding Oceans
Rachel Beckles Willson – composer, performer

I habitually shift outside my comfort zone to explore how the world could be heard differently. In Resounding Oceans I develop an oceanic acoustic environment which I put under increasingly disturbing sonic stress. I then seek out a new position as a sound maker, and attempt, through improvisation, to resonate less damagingly with my sonic ocean and its inhabitants. I ask myself how would like live if we listened to our ocean kin every day, how we could ‘listen with’ the world. In this project I use a range of tools including a tank of water, a whalophone, saxophone(s) and electronics.

Rachel Beckles Willson switches regularly between composing and performing music, researching and writing, teaching and making films. Always listening for neglected sounds and voices, in her work she amplifies and elaborates what has been set outside normality. She tries to transform what counts as real.

Ruben Kotkamp + Áslaug Magnúsdóttir
Ruben Kotkamp – electronics
Áslaug Magnúsdóttir – electronics

Several years after meeting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Ruben Kotkamp and Áslaug Magnúsdóttir decided to work together after a rushed reunion in Paris. The result exists in a cloudy space between spectral music, deconstructed pop, nordic folk, and harsh noise.

The performance at WORM will be the first live presentation of this musical material, which has been created between the Real Surreal Studio in Berlin and the WORM studio in Rotterdam.

Ruben Kotkamp is a transdisciplinary artist and composer, interested in reflecting the lived experience of the spectator without the interference of intellectualization. Through deconstruction, confrontation, sabotage, and sensory deprivation/overstimulation, he aims to create works that embody experiences the spectator can relate to on a visceral level. His work has been shown at Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Gaudeamus Festival (Utrecht, The Netherlands), The New Current (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), the Finnish Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), and Midfield (Montréal, Canada), among others. His music has been released on Vaagner (Berlin, Germany).

Áslaug Magnúsdóttir, a composer and performer from Iceland living in Copenhagen. Interested in the mix between chamber music, experimental music and musical dramaturgy. A member of the experimental duo Pamela Angela together with Mia Ghabarou. Working primarily with music, installation and sculpture. Released music on Subtext Recordings with Bridget Ferrill and on Haunter Records with Mia Ghabarou. Musical direction for Source Material an international theatre, dance, and film company directed by Samantha Shay.