Beyond Music #9: Marina Rosenfeld / Diane Mahín / Davide Tidoni / Maan Methven & Victor Goemaere

Beyond Music is STUK's laboratory for sound performances. Expect an ear-blowing journey through four short interventions at the intersection of sound, image, space, and body.

The evening will begin with the premiere of Lament for a Burnt Forest, a composition for five loudspeakers by Maan Methven and Victor Goemaere. The piece is intended as a contemporary lament for the loss of nature. Recordings of women's voices encourage us to mourn what is disappearing and to take a more conscious approach to what remains of the world. Through this piece, the artistic duo aims to encourage collective mourning in a society where loss is often experienced individually and in silence.

American composer and sound artist Marina Rosenfeld has since the 1990s explored the boundaries between turntablism, composition, performance, video and sculpture. At Beyond Music, Rosenfeld will perform a piece on the 'transacoustic piano'. This unique piano, developed by Yamaha, allows recorded sounds to be played via the mechanical soundboard, which acts as a speaker. This allows her to play with the conventions and clichés of this classical instrument and mislead the listener. Her performance on the transacoustic piano was first developed as part of her contribution, titled µ, to the 2024 Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, exploring the material dimension of sound reproduction and inscription.

After the break, interdisciplinary artist Davide Tidoni will present a series of live actions that explore the relationship between the performer and sound equipment, particularly the microphone and speaker. Tidoni does not treat these objects as mere tools, but as spatial sound bodies with which he interacts in unexpected ways.
Supported by the Flemish Government.

Inspired by death metal music, artist Diane Mahín set to work with the impressive ‘growling’ technique. In her performance GRUNT, the audience is introduced to a woman who communicates exclusively by growling. When the growling woman tries to connect through humor and tenderness, the audience responds with uncomfortable confusion and fearful reserve. GRUNT exposes the raw language of trauma, as well as the body's need to express what words cannot.