'Blind' for non-existent soloist and ensemble Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag & Jameszoo: Premiere 4 Oct, tour until 9 Nov MUSIC

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Jameszoo wanted to disappear from his music. That failed completely, he tells himself. But what a glorious failure. He developed an instrument that is not only self-playing, but also improvises and communicates with musicians playing live. They let the non-existent challenging soloist to unpredictable musical play.

Electroacoustic wrestling

Asko|Schönberg and Slagwerk Den Haag are collaborating with Bossche producer Jameszoo. He has developed an algorithmic musical brain that plays a piano and responds to the master musicians of the ensembles. An autonomous instrument between the musicians, a kind of disklavier 2.0.
And Jameszoo himself, amazed god in his own sound universe, bombards the musicians with the notes he wrote for them and where he can with his electronics. A unique piece of electroacoustic wrestling to remember.

Result always different

Mitchel van Dinther, aka Jameszoo, has an international reputation as a DJ and producer of experimental electronic jazz. The music he writes cannot be categorised under any one heading. Van Dinther himself describes it as "something in between jazz and contemporary".
On his latest album, Blind (2022), he focuses on instruments that play themselves through self-learning algorithms. He further developed that idea for this project into a plan to bring a non-existent soloist really on stage, to which the musicians then respond. To make that concept work, Van Dinther worked with machine learning-researchers developed an algorithm that allows the robot piano or disc keyboard to autonomously decide which notes to play. As a result, the sounding result is always different. Jameszoo's robotic piano is in the tradition of Conlon Nancarrow's piano etudes: music that is often physically impossible for humans to play. But, he emphatically adds, "I want to keep it human, the technology behind it is not that interesting".

Visual

A stage image is being developed by scenographer, set and lighting designer Theun Mosk that reflects the interaction between the non-existent soloist and the musicians visually supported. Mosk, awarded the Charlotte Köhler Prize and the Proscenium Prize for his essential contribution to the Dutch theatre, has worked with Boukje Schweigman, Michel van der Aa, Robert Wilson, English National Opera, Design Museum Den Bosch, David Mitchell and the Nederlands Dans Theater, among others. He also created the stage design for Asko|Schönberg's successful performance of Reich/Richter last spring.