Extended Originals is a brand new interdisciplinary performance that uses new media, different musical techniques, electronics and video, and closely resembles an audiovisual vertigo effect. The two performers, Dejana Sekulić and Victor Guaita, build an experience around mesmerizing repertoire by young Irish composer slash skater Sam Perkin and German composer Johannes Kreidler. For this occasion, Sekulić wrote her composition time and time again, which revisits violin works by Belgian romanticist Eugène Ysaÿe and runs through the night as the connecting factor. The use of video projections creates ‘multiple selves’ of our performers, which serve as a vessel to explore the past and the future.

Especially created for DAS HAUS, Extended Originals invites the audience to go on a journey through time and space, to be confronted with their own self and to wholly surrender to these sensory escapades.

Dejana Sekulić is a Belgian violinist, sound & silence explorer, performer, composer, and artist. She is currently working on her PhD research, “Temporality of the Impossible'', and has just released a CD with her solo violin work at NMC/Huddersfield Contemporary Records. Dejana obtained her bachelor’s degree at the Faculty of Art University of Niš (Serbia), followed by master and post-master studies at the Royal Conservatory Brussels. She has finished an advanced program for contemporary music led by ICTUS and Spectra ensembles at the School of Arts Gent. She actively performs not only as a soloist, but in different ensembles, is part of the research collective People Coming from NowHere and has created multiple multimedia and interactive sound installations.

Victor Guaita Igual, viola, completed his studies under Paul de Clerck at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (2014). He founded and devoted himself to Zerkalo Quartet, working with composers such as Hosokawa, Posadas and Sciarrino, and obtained a second master degree in string quartet at the MusikHochschule of Hannover in 2019. Victor has collaborated with contemporary music ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, ICTUS and Divertimento and is currently exploring the ritual of solo recital, researching multidisciplinary interactions (Gray, 2020; Garden, 2021), and questioning the format of performative spaces (Tarot Readings, 2020; Prologue: They were here first, 2021).

The next DAS HAUS concert promises to do exactly what we stand for; make you think, help you breathe, encounter yourself and connect to others. For the very first time, composer Szymon Brzóska, pianist Barbara Drazkov and soprano Julia Szproch join forces with Japanese percussionist Tsubasa Hori to create a new, exciting musical universe inspired by the poetry of Persian poet Rumi. Brzóska, committed to writing a new song cycle for the occasion, displays a lightness and lyricism that perfectly intertwines with the mesmerising rhythms and energy of Hori's Japanese taiko drums.

Every audience member is invited to take part in this drawn-out ritual where poetry meets music and meditation. This performance strives to explore universal truths about love and death, resonating with light and energy, aiming to bring a moment of ease and hope in these dark, uncertain times.

Brzóska is excited about the collaboration: "Exploring my deep interest in Rumi’s poetry, its universality and timelessness, I attempt to present it in a modern context by translating it into a new musical language based on a combination of different music styles. The cycle of “Rumi Songs” attempts to unify both classical instruments like piano and soprano voice with oriental Japanese instruments like taikos and Kyujo Orin."

Seth Parker Woods is one of the most versatile artists currently on the scene, and in that capacity the perfect addition to the DAS HAUS line-up; he has mastered different musical genres and time periods and often searches for cross pollination with multimedia, technology and other art forms. He welcomes influences from Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's dance movements and the use of color in Jean-Michel Basquiat's work. He is also one of the leading voices on identity politics within the classical music scene and was one of the founding members in the Chineke! Orchestra, the British orchestra that almost solely consists of musicians of color.

He's performed with our very own Belgian Ictus Ensemble (which we hosted last season!) but also shared the stage with Basel Sinfonietta, Atlanta Symphony and Seattle Symphony. He's collaborated with artists and composers like Louis Andriessen, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed and Dame Shirley Bassey.

Parker Woods takes with him a varied and deeply personal programme, titled ‘This Be Their Verse’, with music by contemporary composers like Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson, Nathalie Joachim, Monty Adkins, Chinary Ung and Devonté Hynes, the British producer better known as Blood Orange. The different parts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 weave everything together. This suite has a symbolic significance in Parker Woods' life and makes this programme feel like an autobiographical chronicle. But above all, this evening will be a societal please for freedom, identity and humanity.

'Being under the weather', 'being down in the dumps', 'feeling blue' or 'walking around with a long face'. We have many words and phrases to express sadness, melancholy and anguish. The one connecting factor between all human lives is an emotional experience. This concert dives into that and will leave you going on your own introspective journey.

Ictus Ensemble is a Brussels based contemporary music ensemble that often explores the borders between music, theatre, poetry and performance. The ensemble examines formats and ways of listening: very short or very long programmes, experimental series, large scale projects, ... Through these innovative concert experiences Ictus always - directly or indirectly - asks questions about the future of contemporary music.

At their DAS HAUS concert, Ictus Ensemble will voyage between contemporary and renaissance repertoire, descending into the darkest corners of the human soul. Expect an ode to black tar, melancholy and nostalgia; a cocktail so haunting you will need a drink afterwards. You'll hear music for soprano, viola da gamba, electronic and acoustic guitar, by John Dowland, Tobias Hume, Jürg Frey, Francesco Filidei, Burkhard Stangl & Stephen Goodall.

Adventure, interdisciplinarity and above all a strong and critical contact with today’s world through the use of new technologies. These are some of the main objectives for Nadar Ensemble. They are inspired by Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820-1910), whose pseudonym was Nadar. He was not only a well-known photographer, balloonist, caricaturist, spy, art critic and curator, but regularly organized informal salons to which he invited artists, thinkers, writers and scientists, thus creating a true cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Since our 21st century is pluriform, multi- and transmedial, and is more and more inhabited by digital natives and a networked generation Nadar Ensemble is not only fascinated by contemporary music, but also by film, the visual arts, performance, theatre, installation art and all that is contained – or not – by these categories. Nadar Ensemble wishes to develop forms of musical presentation that reflect this world, in an attempt to anchor new music more strongly in today's world.

Sander De Keere presents his brand new album Primitive Structures, a musical bridge between repetition and variation, alienation and stillness, concept and narration. He does so with piano, harmonium, voice and violin, thanks to violinist Ciska Vandelanotte. According to him, minimal music can offer the answer to our overly hurried way of life. So it will be a blissful, relaxing Saturday evening, an immersive experience where everyone can sink a little deeper into their seats than usual.

Sander De Keere (1992, Ghent) is a Belgian musician and composer of classical and minimalist repetitive music. His work departs from simplicity and offers a musical reflection on the spirit of our times. Apart from writing music for television, podcasts and theatre, and writing and performing his own work, Sander is also a radio presenter on Klara and can be seen in Iedereen Beroemd and Iedereen Klassiek, where he explains classical music in the most accessible way possible.

Primitive Structures was released in January 2022 on the Belgian label W.E.R.F. records.

Violinist and vocalist Diamanda La Berge Dramm will grace the stage with a sonic journey that will take you by surprise. She interweaves Bach, Cage, and Glass effortlessly with her own stories and songs and continuously seeks to unfold her violin, both in sound and conceptually.

Diamanda La Berge Dramm grew up in a musical family in Amsterdam and has been playing the violin since she was four years old. From a young age, she was always around key players within the classical music and avant-garde and improv scene. When she was thirteen, she premiered Louis Andriessen's solo piece 'Raadsels' during the Holland Festival 2005 at het Concertgebouw. Dramm studied in The Hague, Boston and Amsterdam. Upon graduation, she received the John Cage award for her achievements in contemporary music. In 2018 she was awarded the Dutch Classical Talent Award, and in 2019 the Deutschlandfunk Förderungspreis. In the meantime, she's become an internationally renowned soloist, chamber musician and band member. Dramm has worked with musical innovators like Alvin Lucier, Garth Knox and Georg Friedrich Haas. Her own work is often interdisciplinary and stems from longterm collaboration, as is the case with poet SJ Fowler and fashion brand Maison the Faux. Dramm also co-founded Splendor Amsterdam.

Anna-Maria Hefele is a musical phenomenon. She moves between diverse vocal techniques – from classical to polyphonic overtone singing – and accompanies herself perfectly with unusual instruments such as harp and the swedish nyckelharpa trance-like as a matter of course. She presents her vocal versatility in a solo programme which would overtax most singers: Scandinavian and Italian 16th century folklore, musical gems from medieval visionary Hildegard von Bingen, music from Brian Eno and her own compositions appear as from a single mould and lead the audience with a hypnotic pull. Anna-Maria Hefele enables emotional participation ethereally and pervasively, allowing space for one’s own dreamworld.

November 2016. Lute player Sofie Vanden Eynde is afraid that her heart is going to give out. Her doctor spells out the diagnosis in capital letters: burnout. She's a burnt-out building. Even the music is like a rope around her neck. It is as if her strings are sticky with adrenaline, playing is killing her. So she stops - for nearly a year. Today she’s taking stock. Her strings speak differently now: the silence between the notes has taken on new meaning. The idea of losing herself in time no longer frightens her. Sofie has distilled her experiences with burnout into a new recital that explores the spaces between noise and clarity, confusion and stillness, discord and harmony. The recital presents music by John Dowland, Francesco da Milano and a new work by Vladimir Gorlinsky. In a new composition, the author Annemarie Peeters explores ways to put into words Sofie's journey to the breaking-point and back. This is a unique concert performance shining light on a situation that many today will recognise: what happens when the regular beat of life falters?