For Flemish composer Wim Henderickx, who died in 2022, music is the dream vehicle for a spiritual journey. Musicians, audience and composer are part of an intense listening experience. His composition Inner Life ( 2022) can be considered a musical testament.
Inner Life is as much a composition as an alchemical formula – or a game. It is a recipe for an artistic experiment in which all possible musical personalities and groups can participate. The open score has a duration of seven times seven minutes, for a basic instrumentation of seven “initiates. The score is partly through-composed, partly open. Precisely notated in some places, graphically rendered in others.
A performance of Inner Life is always different. Wim Henderickx composed a new score, with a duration of seven x seven minutes, for a basic instrumentation of seven ‘initiates’. The score is partly through-composed, partly open-ended; precisely notated in some places, graphically represented in others. The piece consists of musical objects on the one hand, some melodic, some timbral in nature, some concrete, some random. On the other hand, different ‘performance strategies’ or paths are proposed. The composition starts from a basic line-up of seven performers, but has several passages to other performance layers, which can be interpreted by a multitude of performers.
In principle, the work can be played by seven performers. But Inner Life is also suitable for involving many more people in the alchemical crucible, including larger groups of performers. Choirs, brass bands, percussion groups, amateur societies of different levels can participate and collaborate in a living laboratory and experimentally create a new work of art and experience. The composition is suitable for participation in all kinds of art disciplines, music, dance, free expression but also, live action drawing and video art. Inner Life is realised by performing the seven parts of the piece in one day. Each part is a performance unto itself.
Audiences are invited to broaden their usual concert experience. Listeners can experience one, several or all performances of Inner Life, in whole or in part. The usual, linear experience of a concert is replaced by a cyclical event.
Inner Life is presented by SN partners Musica and November Music in 2024.