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." From an extensive conversation about Winterreise in Meesterwerk on Klara, I remember her spontaneous remark "Oh, but I'm not afraid of death", she was a young thirty-something. In the meantime, Deneire is bringing her second opera to the stage, Bonaparte (1) based on a libretto by Tom Lanoye and with actor Stefaan Degand in the lead role. All summer we can experience the exhibition "AMI", Mycelium Music Installation, with music recorded by Philippe Thuriot, in the Sint Maartenskerk of Kortrijk.
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 Conservatorium in Antwerp 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 permanently under my skin. 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 which puts me in the same category as people like Piet Colruyt or Wouter Torfs. It's not just about writing music that people think is beautiful, I also want to have impact. What I'm trying to do right now with my installation is to make both things and 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 recall a sarcophagus or coffin. They are made of living material, on top of the straw from which they are made grows mycelium, derived 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, whether or not spiritually charged. This summer that happens in a Gothic church where, not coincidentally, an organ festival is also taking place. At certain moments, a live performance can be added to it.
CDW: Where does your fascination come from for a living organism like mycelium, which we associate with biology, ecology, science?
HD: As a child, I was already very aware of my connection with the world and the power of certain energies. The latter is just like mycelium invisible, not tangible but it does have a great effect. When in my childhood there were 'difficult' children in the neighborhood, 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 an awareness of connection with everything around you. I'm convinced that in our world everything is connected with everything, like the fungal network underground works together. Over time, this has become my lifestyle.
HD: Actually, I had been looking for a long time for a space, but also an object, a material, even a texture that matches my compositions and my way of being in life. Strangely enough, the two terms that came to mind 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, nearby so to speak. I discovered that the burial of bodies in coffins made with mycelium takes place more ecologically and organically than the traditional way of burial or cremation. It is a more harmonious way, you could say. A body buried above the ground under a layer of mycelium would shorten the decomposition process to just a few months. But that's music of the future, because the relevant legislation is currently lacking everywhere. Very quickly, my conversation partners and I managed to combine my artistic vision with their scientific know-how in a Mycelium Music Installation. So I'm working on greater visibility of the research work by Loop biotech (2) and for my part, this collaboration has helped me grow, as a person and as an artist.
CDW: The jump from mycelium to community apparently hasn't been very big 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 tells 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 opposite, the objects, the sarcophagi I experience 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 leftover mycelium I have experimented further here at home, it listens very carefully, depends on temperature, humidity, duration of cultivation, etc. The end result is as unpredictable as an improvisation on my bass clarinet, wonderful isn't it.
CDW: Most people will experience 'Ami' as an installation, not as a performance where you are present and can frame things. The casual visitor, the passerby who comes seeking 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 so that someone meets themselves. After all, the whole thing starts from silence. 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 play of silence and music emerges. The music begins ppp and gradually increases in volume, it plays in loops and is written in such a way that you can always step in and out. A small detail, it was recorded in a church, so the acoustics are very appropriate.
HD: The most beautiful thing I can do is put beauty down and create an atmosphere where someone can come to 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 bit.
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CDW: Hanne Deneire writing Bonaparte for the orchestra of 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 always fell wonderfully into place. The vision that speaks from my Mycelium installation can be found entirely 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 that this is not 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 are very close to each other.
CDW: Your living work of art breathes and grows, … no one knows where. Much success 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 through end of September 2022. Exhibition 'AMI', Mycelium Music Installation in the Sint-Maartenskerk in Kortrijk daily from 10 to 18 o'clock. 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 studied with 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 lead 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 regarded internationally as a foundational work in music and dementia. She is following the project-atelier training for visual artists at the Berchem academy.
(2) The installation was made technically possible by Loop Biotech
https://loop-biotech.homerun.co/
hannedeneire.info