Maison Moderne

Maison Moderne

Steven Kamperman – clarinets, compositions • Oene van Geel – viola • Paul Jarret – electric guitar • Albert van Veenendaal – prepared piano, glockenspiel • Henriëtta Müller – visuals

Steven Kamperman wrote the suite Maison Moderne during his residency at the Van Doesburghouse (Paris), a fine example of modern De Stijl architecture dating from 1930. Surrounded by its geometrical forms and primary colors, Kamperman was inspired by the successful marriage of constructivism and grounded spirituality that it represents. Live supported by a video by Henrietta Müller, the suite takes the listener on a tour through the house, entering from the Facade through the Entrance, to the Library, the Music Room, the grandeur of the Atelier, the Kitchen and finally ending near the futuristic machines of the Heating Room. In between, there are intermezzos about essential events in painter/architect Theo van Doesburg’s life, like his friendship with painter and wild dancer Piet Mondrian, the relationship with Nelly van Moorsel who stopped her piano career for him, the Bauhaus movement which he reformed himself in a crucial way, and his own writing of dada poems.

Paying true hommage to the house, the musicians recorded the suite on location, even using its different rooms. Take your shoes off to enter a universe of its own, in Steven Kamperman’s Maison Moderne.

Listen to a selection of the first rough mixes!

1. La facade et l’entrée – l’amour du monument

2. intermezzo – AusBauH

3. La bibliothèque – l’amour du vitrail

4. La pièce à musique – l’amour de l’erreur

5. intermezzo – Mon ami Mondrian danse le charleston

6. Le Grand Atelier – l’amour de la lumière et de l’espace