My first meeting with Hanne Deneire dates back 20 years ago at the Concertgebouw of Radio 1, when she, freshly graduated, introduced herself disarmingly as "Hello, I'm Hanne D. and I'm going to write an opera." I remember her spontaneous remark from an extensive conversation about Winterreise in Meesterwerk on Klara "Oh, but I'm not afraid of death", she was a young thirty-something. Meanwhile, Deneire is staging her second opera, Bonaparte (1) based on a libretto by Tom Lanoye and with actor Stefaan Degand in the leading role. Throughout the summer we can experience the exhibition "AMI", Mycelium Music Installation in the Sint Maartenskerk of Kortrijk, with music recorded by Philippe Thuriot.
CDW: You call yourself an impact composer, while I usually describe you as a community composer. Are we talking about the same thing?
HD: Indeed, everything I do is a form of community art, which is why after the Conservatory in Antwerpen I went to the Guildhall School of London for my specialization, the UK is the cradle of community art. That way of thinking and doing is under my skin for good. But in the meantime I'm also an entrepreneur, for example I've been running my music school House of Music for more than 25 years, completely à ma façon, seeking the greatest possible connection between people. Impact composer is a contamination of community composer and impact entrepreneur with which I come to stand alongside people like Piet Colruyt or Wouter Torfs. It's not only about writing music that people find beautiful, I also want to have impact. What I'm trying to do right now with my installation is to make things and also people grow.
Exhibition 'AMI' – Mycelium Music Installation
Sint Maartenskerk, Kortrijk from 9 June to 25 September 2022
The exhibition "AMI", Mycelium Music Installation consists of three upright objects that immediately remind one of a sarcophagus or coffin. They actually consist of living material, on top of the straw from which they are made, mycelium grows, coming from the gigantic fungal network that connects all above and underground life and that recycles waste into new life. When a visitor approaches the coffin, a sensor reacts to the movement and music sounds: 'Ami, a composition by Hanne Deneire from 2015 recorded on accordion by Philippe Thuriot. Through the installation she wants to create a dialogue with the visitor in various public spaces with or without spiritual charge. This summer this happens in a gothic church where, not coincidentally, an organ festival also takes place. At certain moments a live performance can be added to it.
CDW: Where does your fascination for a living organism like mycelium, which we associate with biology, ecology, science, come from?
HD: As a child I was already very aware of my connection with the world and the power of certain energies. The latter, like mycelium, is invisible, not tangible but it certainly has a great effect. If there were 'difficult' children in my neighborhood as a child, with whom people couldn't make contact, they would say 'put Hanne there, that will work'. Well, I suspect somewhere that this has to do with a sense of connection with everything around you. I am convinced that in our world everything is connected with everything, just as the fungal network underground works together. Over time this has become my lifestyle.
HD: Actually, I had been looking for a space for a long time, but also an object, a material, even a texture that fits my compositions and my way of standing in life. Strangely enough, the two terms that came to me were 'living - dead', I was looking for an interplay of forces, something of great vulnerability, well we would see… Until I unexpectedly saw a documentary about mycelium. The next day I had the makers on the phone and I had contact with the Technical University Delft which does extensive research into mycelium, right nearby so to speak. I discovered that burying bodies in coffins made with mycelium is more ecological and organic than the traditional way of burial or cremation. It's a more harmonious way, you could say. A body above ground under a layer of mycelium 'buried' would shorten the decomposition process to a matter of months. But that's music for the future, because the relevant legislation is currently lacking everywhere. Very quickly, my conversation partners and I managed to link my artistic vision to their scientific know-how in a Mycelium Music Installation. So I work on greater visibility of the research work by Loop biotech (2) and on my part this collaboration has made me grow, as a person and artist.
CDW: The jump from mycelium to community apparently wasn't very large for you?
HD: As a composer, I want to make contemporary music come alive, as an entrepreneur I want to connect people, make them pause and reflect, as a pedagogue I use my patience, my time to explain things. The material of mycelium, the texture, the meaning actually tell perfectly what I have to say. In my work I am constantly engaged with people, babies, children as well as the elderly and people with dementia. Life and death are not each other's opposites, I experience the objects, the sarcophagi rather as gates, and the entire installation as a form of transformation. Making connections between life and death, time and space, sound and silence, mycelium is capable of it all.
Finally, there is the great unpredictability. With scraps of mycelium I have experimented further here at home, it is very particular, depends on temperature, humidity, duration of cultivation, etc. The end result is as unpredictable as an improvisation on my bass clarinet, quite wonderful really.
CDW: Most people will experience 'Ami' as an installation, not as a performance where you are present and can frame things. The misguided visitor, the chance visitor looking for the silence of the church, the music lover during the organ festival, the tourist, the culture enthusiast who read about you… What can 'Ami' bring about in all these different people?
HD: I don't want and won't fill anything in, but I hope the installation is open enough that someone meets themselves. The whole starts from silence, after all. If the image of the coffin triggers you and invites you to discover further, the image responds to you via a sensor and a subtle interplay of silence and music emerges. The music begins ppp and gradually increases in volume, it plays in loops and is written so that you can always step in and out. Small detail, it was recorded in a church, so the acoustics are very appropriate.
HD: The most beautiful thing I can do is put down beauty and create an atmosphere where someone can find themselves. If I hope for anything, it is that people can feel safe and cared for in that space. Maybe you are completely alone in the church and it feels (she whispers) … as if those objects, larger than yourself, hold you a little.
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CDW: Hanne Deneire writing Bonaparte for the orchestra of the Flemish Opera and Hanne Deneire inviting the audience to silence in the church, how do these two relate to each other?
HD: With Ami, the installation connects me with the visitor and thus with society, while for my opera I had to connect very closely with the librettist. Tom Lanoye and I wrote synchronously, side by side on the text and the music, we became one mind, saw how the piece grew and how the puzzle pieces wonderfully fell into place each time. The vision that speaks from my Mycelium installation can be completely traced back in the creative process of Bonaparte. Around the protagonist Stefaan Degand alias Napoleon hangs much human drama, which I portray in a grounded way. The actor also becomes a singer, there is no classical choir, society is my choir and the orchestra is taken out of its comfort zone. (Some will argue this is not an opera, so be it, that is a matter of terminology). In Bonaparte society is very present, in the installation the visitor, the audience is central. In that sense, the two worlds lie very close to each other.
CDW: Your living artwork breathes and grows, … no one knows where. Good luck with everything you still want to do.
AGENDA:
24 May 2022 Bonaparte (1), with Stefaan Degand in the lead role by Flemish Opera Orchestra, during Antwerp Spring Festival. The tour has still been postponed due to Corona.
9 June 2022 at 20:00 Mycelium Music Happening with improvisation on bass clarinet by Hanne Deneire and on the organ by Dirk Blockeel.
10 June to end of September 2022. Exhibition 'AMI', Mycelium Music Installation in the Sint-Maartenskerk in Kortrijk daily from 10 to 18 hours. During liturgical services the church is not accessible to visitors.
Between 12 June and 18 September 2022: International Organ Festival in Kortrijk with compulsory work written by Hanne Deneire, about which further information will follow.
In 2023 the installation will be heard and seen at the Festival der Voorkempen and in the SMAK.
BIO, a robot photo.
Hanne Deneire had multiple piano teachers, studied bass clarinet with Jan Guns, composition with Wim Henderickx and Luc Vanhove, specialized in music therapy and community art. You may know her from the compositions Mitä, Katsu, Lotus, Divina Commedia and others. In 2008 she wrote the opera Papieren Geluk for Het Paleis with Dimitri Leue in the leading role. She developed her own music method Children are Composers which she teaches at House of Music, HoM. She wrote Een andere Dementie in Muziek, which is internationally regarded as a foundational work in music and dementia. She is currently studying project-atelier for visual artists at the Berchem academy.
(2) The installation was made technically possible by Loop Biotech
https://loop-biotech.homerun.co/
hannedeneire.info