Opportunities # 2: Solo now.

October 1, 2020

Since quite a few years years I’ve been working on and off on a solo repertoire for (primarily) soprano saxophone with a series of concerts and an album in mind. thanks to the W.E.R.F. label this will be happening next week in Bruges. I will be recording live before an actual though limited 150 capacity audience at the beautiful church of Sint Walburga on Oct 6 as part of the AMOK music festival.  Next day the recording continues at the chamber music room of the Concertgebouw, no audience present. On Oct 8 I’m doing one more solo concert at Kapel, a new venue in Herentals (near Antwerp and my birth place Turnhout) before heading home to NYC after an inspiring 3 months in Europe. The album, followed by more solo dates, will be out in the fall. Meanwhile, If you’re in Belgium I hope you can be part of one of these  two special solo nights, see the calendar for more information and links.


Opportunities #1: how one gig became 3 months in Europe.

October 1, 2020

Time to post after a far too long Covid-silence. With difficult times come also opportunities. Having been invited for one single limited capacity date in Europe and forced into a 2 week quarantine before playing that date, one thing seemed to lead to another.  Many thanks to the city of Antwerp for putting me up in an artist-in-residence place, giving me all the space and time I needed to step up my solo practice – more about this later- leading into a first solo date at sunrise (6:30 am!) at the intimate Wonderland festival in Gent. Over the next few weeks I was happy to respond to short notice offers to rejoin  Tom Barman and my other TaxiWars friends, then Bram De Looze for a duo at Jazz Middelheim 1.5 and a few exciting MiXMONK dates with Bram and Joey Baron. Lots of time off came in handy to assure the release of The Bach Riddles and the release tour are effectively on for January, and to finalize mixing and mastering of the Madonna recording with Marc Copland and the wonderful Goeyvaerts String Trio. This one was inspired by the famous Madonna painting by Fouquet, from the collection of KMSKA (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) in Antwerp were Goeyvaerts and I are among the artists in residence.