Ledenconcert Ties Mellema
with Bram van Sambeek & Ping-En Hung a.o.
Ties Mellema releases his new, still-untitled solo album: harder and more electronic than before, with wide synths, sub-bass and drums he programmed himself. Minimal music is also a big part of it, alongside classical music, jazz, funk and pop, other long-standing influences. All these styles, and even different music cultures, come together on the record. It’s exactly that kind of coming-together he’d like to see in society too.
Press Release is minimalist: it has something of dance music about it, but its strange rhythms make it hard to actually dance to. Passing Trains, the opening track, has Steve Reich-like soprano saxophone lines. KIPPENPOTEN is a reworking of Mussorgsky’s Baba Yaga, a piece Ties played in a saxophone orchestra when he was ten and immediately heard as dance music.
The record continues where Ties left off with PEAX, but with more electronic music: more heavily processed saxophones, wide synths and sub-bass, and drums he programmed himself. The opening track, EN DOOR, was commissioned by the Harp Festival Utrecht, shortly after Ties stopped working with PEAX. It’s about having to keep going, wanting to keep going, and not being able to stop once you start making your own music in this way.
At this release concert at Splendor, bassoonist Bram van Sambeek and bassist Ping-En Hung join Ties. They’ll perform works by Sofia Gubaidulina and Joris Roelofs, alongside reworked versions of the new material. The concert also gives a glimpse of where Ties is heading next.
Ties Mellema, saxophones & electronics,
Bram van Sambeek, bassoon
Ping-En Hung, bass guitar
Photos: Rafal Nowicki & Boris Peters
Member concert
Splendor can only be the independent and free hub that it is, thanks to the members who support us. We pay them back with our specialty: music. Every year, all Splendor musicians play one concert that's free for this crucial group to whom Splendor owes its everyday existence. Combined with many other events, this means that our members have free entrance to over 50 concerts a year for €9,99 p/m (and €4,99 p/m for minima and students!) – and receive a discount for all other concerts. Pretty good deal, right?
The members enable Splendor to remain independent, which is the only way to secure real freedom in programming, experimentation, risk-taking and the promotion of young, upcoming artists. If you can think of another place without a central programming, where last-minute concerts can be planned any moment, where there is no backstage and artists and audience are constantly mingling and hanging out at the bar, where mysterious creative outbursts can be presented that are often labeled 'too risky' elsewhere, and that still guarantees high quality by unleashing the best of The Netherlands' music scene in this creative playground – you get a free membership!
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