Waterworks (premiere)

As a visitor to this concert, you choose a "wet" or "dry" seat, take your place in or around the water, and for just under 15 minutes you are literally and figuratively immersed in a bath of sound. 

Composer Aart Strootman has been conducting unique research into sounding material and the development of new instruments for years. He sees it as an important link between composer and performer. Strootman is therefore the perfect person for an assignment that explores the properties of (under)water music. Waterwerken is a follow-up to the pilot Floating that Strootman carried out at the festival in 2018 in the hotel swimming pool of Parkhotel Tjaarda. In the latest project, he uses tubular bells. Cleanly tuned, tonal sound bars stand next to or partly hang in the pool, or float or slide in the water. This creates different types of sounds. 

In the composition, the pipes enter into a dialogue with the water and become part of it. Their pitches are tuned with extreme precision, creating a rich range of overtones. Acoustic phenomena such as beatings can also be heard. These are interferences of two very closely spaced tones creating rhythmic patterns. These beatings and their solutions as the tones merge back together form tension and relaxation in this work, just as dissonants and consonants do in traditional music.