Timelapse – Kugoni Trio

The Kugoni Trio present their first CD: Timelapse. The limited repertoire for our somewhat unusual group of instruments and the often all too conservative attitudes of the classical music world were the most important incentives for us to create our own artistic identity. We have spent years in debate, concert giving and experimentation in order to provide an answer to one fundamental question: what special contribution can the Kugoni Trio bring to today’s musical landscape?
Our basic principle is that music acts as a link between the past and the present. The composer plays a leading role in this, as the creative impulse is motivated by contemporary events but nonetheless retains a strong connection to musical tradition. We have given physical form to this idea by commissioning modern composers to write new works for us;

by so doing, we create an artistic laboratory in which performers and composers come together to explore unknown territories. This has resulted in no less than four Flemish contemporary works that are connected to and contrasted with Las cuatros estaciones porteñas by the Argentinian tango composer Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992).

Jan Hendrik Van Damme, Erik Desimpelaere, Benjamien Lycke and Jan Van Landeghem have each succeeded in depicting one of the four seasons in contemporary musical language, each of them being inspired by an event that has personally been of great significance to them. Jan Hendrik Van Damme has created an elegant ode to life in memory of the French composer Henri Dutilleux, who died in 2013. Erik Desimpelaere brings a message of hope after the tragic murders in Norway in 2011, while Benjamien Lycke uses his music to evoke the First World War with serenity one hundred years after the event. Jan Van Landeghem makes ingenious use of ancient Chinese number theory to depict the attacks that occurred in Paris on 13 November 2015 and imparts a true spir- itual dimension to this CD. The events of today’s world and Piazzolla’s Four Sea- sons are the direct sources of inspiration for and the underlying theme of the cycle of works that make up Timelapse.

This being said, the Kugoni Trio now invites its listeners to submit themselves to the challenge of contemporary music; we hope to inspire you to experience classical music in a completely different manner.

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