With OPEN CONTINUUM Wim Mertens presents his second project with symphonic orchestra. In 2006 the composer recorded Partes extra partes, a studio production with the Brussels Philarmonic directed by the Argentinian conductor Dante Anzolini.
Since then, Wim Mertens regularly performed with a piano/voice and symphonic orchestra setup, with among others Madrid, Murcia, Berlin and Brussels Philarmonic’s orchestras. The composer considers the production and the performing with symphonic orchestra as one of the facets of his musical activity. Since his first recordings At home-Not at home (1980); Vergessen and Struggle for pleasure (1982) and Maximizing the audience (1984), Mertens alternates the solo concerts (Epic that never was, Lisbon 1993), with brass quartets (Not yet, no longer, Gdansk 2003) or with brass sextet, accompanied or not by a vocal sextet (What you see is what you hear, Antwerpen 2006). But Mertens performs and has performed also for numerous concerts in more than twenty countries with various setups : duo (violin or clarinet and soprano sax, Moins de mètre, assez de rythme, Paris 2002) and in trio for piano, violin and cello.
With the solo record In the absence of hindrance (Gdansk, 2002) and numerous solo studio recordings (i.e. After Virtue (1988), Der heisse Brei (2000) and Un respiro (2004) Mertens associates the practice of making music as a soloist (piano and voice) with his activities as a composer for the most varied setups as in Skopos, (Gaasbeek, 2002), for an ensemble of 14 musicians.
OPEN CONTINUUM treats about the continuum – vocal ? – which doesn’t stop but is only interrupted given its open character ! This opening aspect allows to open disruptions and distortions of all kinds, without having to close and naively conclude. This new turbulence between Practice and Theory is visible and audible in Wim Mertens’ double CD and DVD OPEN CONTINUUM.
OPEN CONTINUUM: Wim Mertens, piano/voice with the Tenerife symphonic orchestra directed by Dirk Brossé.