Michael Gordon's Trance

Ensemble Klang + United Instruments of Lucilin

Thu 15 Oct 2026 20:15 - 21:40

contemporary

Thu 15 Oct 2026

20:15 - 21:40

Thu 15 Oct 2026

20:15 - 21:40

Grote Zaal

Past event

Program

19.15 / Foyerdeck 1 / Pre-concert talk
By Huib Ramaer

20.15 / Grote Zaal / Main program
Michael Gordon Trance
Calliope Tsoupaki Greek dance (arr. Pete Harden)
David Fennessy Wounds (world premiere)

Credits

Ensemble Klang
United Instruments of Lucilin

Explosive and hypnotic masterpiece for large ensemble

A double anniversary in 2026: Michael Gordon’s iconic work Trance premiered thirty years ago, and the composer himself turns seventy. A musical whirlwind of breakneck rhythms, crackling brass and furious electric bass and guitar, Trance hasn’t lost an ounce of its power. Top-tier Dutch ensemble Klang and United Instruments of Lucilin from Luxembourg are more than up to the task. They combine Trance with a world premiere by te Irish composer David Fennessy and an arrangement of Greek dance by former Composer Laureate of the Netherlands Calliope Tsoupaki and .

Gordon composed Trance after receiving a message in a dream from someone he describes as ‘a cross between György Ligeti, Louis Andriessen and my own teacher, Martin Bresnick’. Write a work for a large ensemble, he was instructed. And so he did. Trance is a seven-part tour de force of shifting rhythmic layers, equally explosive and hypnotic. David Fennessy writes for the same impactful ensemble of 23 amplified musicians on keyboards, trumpets, trombones, guitars, pan flutes and saxophones.

> Tip: Discover Michael Gordon’s new work "Andriessen" on Thursday, 22 October, written as a mirror composition of Louis Andriessen’s "Hoketus". Both works will be performed by Het Muziek.