2015 | ca. 20' | large concert band
“but it couldn’t be true/it’s a picture of Hitler”
- Kate Bush
(un)mensch is about how humans and human behaviour are fertile ground for radicalization and so-called ‘inhumanity’. This problematic term foregoes the reality that it can only exist on the condition that one is human. The piece is based on the extreme example: Adolf Hitler, whose personality was so ‘inhuman’ that nobody ever wants to be associated with it. Still, historians keep coming up with all kinds of, fundamentally human, personality traits or defects which may have conditioned his frame of mind: tinnitus, borderline personality disorder, amphetamine addiction
(un)mensch takes on to radicalize different existing musical ideas and styles and push them into transgression
(un)mensch won 1st prize and audience award at the 6th International Composition Competition Harelbeke, on april 3rd, 2016.
premiere performance by Royal Wind Orchestra 'Vooruit' Harelbeke, conducted by Erik Desimpelaere
