WINTER TALES

 

WINTER TALES

 

JOEP BEVING Trilogy

 

TRILOGY

SIGNUM Saxophone Quartet ECHOES

 

ECHOES

 

JOEP BEVING Henosis

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JOEP BEVING Henosis

‘Henosis’, Joep Beving’s third album and the last chapter of a trilogy.

On ‘Henosis’ the Dutch composer continues his minimalist and at times romantic style of writing, but this time his piano is complemented by a diverse range of other instruments and players. It sets off where his sophomore album Prehension left us, the warm intimate sound of the Schimmel piano Beving inherited from his grandmother. But the compositional language chosen is different from his previous work. As if gently inviting one on a cosmic adventure, it is the commencement of an epic journey into the unknown. What follows is a deep listening experience in which the piano, although sometimes completely absent, is the familiar voice that guides the listener on its way into oblivion. Beving draws his inspiration from man’s relationship to reality.

His debut album ‘Solipsism’ investigates the self and how it is related to the other by trying to show we have a shared understanding of what it is to be human, e.g. manifested in our response to a thing of beauty.

For ‘Prehension’ Beving describes realizing he had zoomed out from the individual level to the level of the collective. Borrowing his album title from Alfred North Whitehead who portrays reality as an organism in which man is held responsible for the unfolding of fragments of reality every fraction of a second.

‘Henosis’ is the last step in which Beving, this time intentionally, zoomed out even further resulting in a cosmological journey in search of the fundament of ultimate reality and emptiness of the mind.

JOEP BEVING Conatus

Streaming sensation Joep Beving today releases Conatus, an album of new reworks by acclaimed and up & coming artists, such as iconic synth legend Suzanne Ciani and renowned Amsterdam DJ Tom Trago. The album features reworks of pieces from Solipsism and Prehension, as well as already foreshadowing Joep's next solo album with a rework of one of the new tracks.

The album follows on from three singles released over the past few months: 'Sleeping Lotus' - Tom Trago’s Sixtine Remix, 'Hanging D', which received a rework from the acclaimed Cello Octet Amsterdam and Joep's own new piece 'Prelude'.

Conatus is a selection of reworks and a further expansion of Joep Beving's desire to create a simple soundtrack to accompany our complex human emotions. Its title comes from the philosophical concept of conatus – an innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself. “If you see music as a living organism, then it’s something that will always adapt to new circumstances in order to stay present. This project is not about me. It is about the conatus of my music and for this album I’ve put their lives in other people’s hands.”

Beving invited a range of artists he knows and admires – Cello Octet Amsterdam, Suzanne Ciani, Tom Trago, Eefje de Visser, Colin Benders, Andrea Belfi, CFCF and Thomas Bloch – to rework his music in their own way. The results are not remixes in the club sense, therefore, but new and original interpretations of tracks by Beving, woven together on Conatus to form a coherent album. As well as approaching legendary American electronic music pioneer Ciani, Beving was also keen to involve other musicians from his native Netherlands: “They’re all people I think easily hold their own on the international scene.” (Deutsche Grammophon)

JOEP BEVING Solipsism

The world is a hectic place right now. I felt a deep urge to reconnect on a basic human level with people in general. Music as our universal language has the power to unite. Regardless of our cultural differences I believe we have an innate understanding of what it means to be human. We have our goosebumps to show for it. It’s incredible to see that an artist can reach people all over the world simply by playing the music that I believe in – music in its purest form.
"Solipsism" refers to the philosophical idea that reality only exists in one’s mind. Everything outside of it, the external world and the minds of others, cannot truly be known and hence does not exist. My music is an experiment in existential communication, a belief in an absolute aesthetic, to prove that a universal and metaphysical reality does exist. (Joep Beving)

JOEP BEVING Prehension

Composer and performer Joep Beving, one of the most listened-to living pianists in the world, is joining Deutsche Grammophon to release his new album ‘Prehension’ on 7^th April.

Dutch musician Joep (pronounced ‘Yoop’) is a towering figure in the streaming world – and in real life too, thanks to his two-metre frame (nearly 6’10), wild hair and flowing beard. He has become a one-man success story – writing, recording and releasing his debut album ‘Solipsism’ (now available digitally on DG) which has been streamed nearly 60 million times.

Joep’s delicate melodies instantly struck a chord with listeners when tracks from the album first appeared on streaming music playlists alongside the likes of Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm.

“I call it ‘simple music for complex emotions’,” says Joep, summing up its universal appeal. “The world is a hectic place right now and I feel a deep urge to reconnect on a basic human level with people in general. Music as our universal language has the power to unite.”

Each track on ‘Solipsism’ was recorded at dead of night in the kitchen of his home in Amsterdam, while his partner and two young daughters slept, played on the German piano he had been left by his late grandmother.

Finally the music reached the ears of DG when a friend of Joep’s played the album in her local bar in Berlin – where one of the label’s executives happened to be – and ended up in a signing with the world’s foremost classical label.

The first fruits of the new partnership are ‘Prehension’. A natural successor to ‘Solipsism,’ it carries forward the musical and philosophical themes Joep identifies in his music. Understated, haunting and melancholic, its delicate melodies will help soothe the soul. (Deutsche Grammophon)