Commission for Klarafestival
Joost Fonteyne, programmer for Klarafestival, asked me to write a piece and involve a visual artist, for which I proposed Karl Van Welden. The result is this video/pianopiece:
Diamond Princess, 17/02/2020, Yokohama – Japan.
It will premiere online together with other composer/artist collaborations on 18/03/2021 (see below for more info).
The pianopiece would also be the first part of a new album called Solastalgia, coming out maybe in 2021.
In February 2020, artist Karl Van Welden stayed in Japan. At the same time, the cruise ship Diamond Princess is quarantined and anchored at Daikoku Pier in Yokohama. The first COVID-19 infections outside China were detected on board this ship. Van Welden captured this dramatic momentum with his camera set at Akarenga Park at the other side of the river.
From March 2020 pianist Frederik Croene has been working on new piano pieces under the title Solastalgia. This neologism describes the feeling of mourning in landscapes lost by climate change, but also the eco-fear of a threatening, uncertain future. The set-up of the music emphasizes the dramatic metaphor in which humanity, like the passengers of the Diamond Princess, has trapped itself.
An unimaginative utopia of banal luxury sailing to nowhere now resembles a floating prison as traffic on the twin Yokohama Bay Bridge rages on indifferently.
Broadcast on thursday 18th March at 20:00
• Klarafestival website
• YouTube Klarafestival
• Proximus Pickx
Broadcast on sunday 28th March
• Podium 19
