As a composer, Mathias Coppens himself provides the music, with an ambitious score that meditates on the formation of minerals. It is no coincidence that these are the building blocks of a planet that make existence possible. It is also no coincidence that Mathias links the idea of collective participation in the performance to the most important political and ideological question of the 21st century: how do we live together? How do we, as humanity, treat the earth, and what can this behaviour lead to?

Visually, I was responsible for an abstract translation of the score, with sinuous figurative motifs referring to geological processes. This aesthetic never becomes demonstrative, not even when the fog machine is brought out. On the contrary, with the artistic team we managed to create immersive worlds with minimal resources. It is the use of generative video and sparse lighting that makes the effect unparalleled.

‘Minerals’ (2024) – Mathias Coppens
Performed by:
Mathias Coppens, Composer
BRYGGEN Bruges Strings, Musical Performance
Jolente De Maeyer, Musical Director
Maya Fridman, Cello
Klaas Verpoest, video artist
Menno Buggenhout, App Development
Constantin Binard, Light & Sound Design

“Minerals” is a coproduction of De Singel
26 April 2024, Festival CARTA – Blauwe Zaal, De Singel (B)

All pictures © Björn Comhaire 2024

Initially, I was supposed to join Benjamin on this journey but was unfortunately prevented from going. A month later, we undertook a trip along to the locations that impressed Benjamin the most. I recorded these through 3D scans, with those impressions I went to work and created various worlds that the tour depicts internally and externally. As a viewer, you step along, as it were, to the rippling music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) 6 Suites for cello, BWV 1007-1012
Performed by:
Benjamin Glorieux, cello
Klaas Verpoest & Johan Van Mol, video artist
Steven Reymer, Light Design

“Weg van Bach” is a coproduction of Klara Festival and Bozar
11 March 2023, Klara Festival – Bozar, Henry Le Boeuf Hall (B)

Through the James Webb Space Telescope – NASA’s most powerful telescope – the team discovered the presence of water vapour, sulphur dioxide and sand clouds on the exoplanet WASP-107b. Using specialised imaging techniques, Klaas Verpoest and Johan Van Looveren captured this almost indecipherable data (an endless stream of numbers) from a planet never really seen.
The results of this groundbreaking study were published by the leading scientific journal Nature on 15 November 2023. Immediately afterwards, the news found resonance in the national and international press (VRT news, De Standaard, De Morgen, HLN, The Guardian, USA Today, The Independent, Forbes…).

Credits: 
Illustration: LUCA School of Arts, Belgium/ Klaas Verpoest (visuals), Johan Van Looveren (typography). 
Science: Achrène Dyrek (CEA and Université Paris Cité, France), Michiel Min (SRON, the Netherlands), Leen Decin (KU Leuven, Belgium) / European MIRI EXO GTO team / ESA / NASA

Imagine if we could analyse a recording of ‘Why Patterns?’ using the same mathematical algorithms employed to study exoplanets, and we were able to discover and analyse unique patterns. What if, based on these recurring patterns, we could attribute unique surface characteristics to the world of ‘Why Patterns?’, allowing us to shape this world and represent its evolution over time in an abstract visual narrative? What if this method also enabled us to interact with other so-called celestial bodies within the Feldman universe, such as the new compositions by Jean-Luc Fafchamps and David Fennessy?

Het Collectief – Chamber Music Quintet asked composers David Fennessy (IRL) and Jean-Luc Fafchamps (B), both of whom have a strong affinity with Feldman’s work, to compose new works for the same unique ensemble. I was asked to develop a visual counterpart for these three compositions.

In this project, Professor Leen Decin, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astronomy at KU Leuven, and her team play a key role. Her research on exoplanets, which uses mathematical algorithms, offers an innovative approach to analyse the recording of Feldman’s ‘Why Patterns?’ in a similar way. By examining patterns in the music as one would with exoplanets, her contribution provides new insights that help shape the visual representation of the composition. This scientific perspective enriches the artistic interpretation, making the potential patterns in Feldman’s work visible to the audience.

The performance consists of the following works:
Why Patterns? (1978) Morton FELDMAN (1926-1987)
New work by (2026) David FENNESSY
For Morton Feldman (2025) Jean-Luc FAFCHAMPS
Why Patterns? (2026) Klaas VERPOEST

Performed by Het Collectief
Toon Fret, flute
Thomas Dieltjens, piano
Tom De Cock, percussion
Klaas Verpoest, video performance

In collaboration with
Prof. Leen Decin, Institute of Astronomy KUL
Mediated Environments Reserach Cluster, LUCA School of Arts

March 2026: Première Belgium – Kortrijk Festival, Kortrijk (B)
April 2026: Première Ireland – New Music Festival, Dublin (IRL)
27.05.2026: TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht (NL)

_{Het Collectief in coproduction with Kortrijk Festival (B), New Music Festival Dublin (IRL) and TivoliVredenburg Utrecht (NL)}

Is there life elsewhere in the Universe? How do we detect exoplanets? How do we hope to find life on exoplanets light-years away? What is “TRAPPIST-1”? What do exoplanets tell us about the famous “Fermi’s Paradox”?

The Copernican Revolution taught us that our Earth, far from being the center of the Universe, is only one among the many planets orbiting the Sun, which is itself similar in every respect to the stars lining the celestial vault. Later, astronomy revealed that there are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, our galaxy, and that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our expanding Universe. Faced with such immensity, it is very tempting to hypothesize the existence of other inhabited planets out there, and even of other advanced civilizations. Long confined to speculations, the existence of exoplanets, i.e. planets in orbit around other stars than the Sun, became a proven fact at the end of last century. Since then, more than 4000 exoplanets have been detected at an ever-accelerating pace. A few dozens of these are “potentially habitable”, i.e. they could be rocky worlds harboring oceans of water on their surface, like our Earth. Imagining complex forms of life on some of these planets is but a small step away, one that is happily crossed by science-fiction. But our imagination will eventually be replaced by real scientific measurements, as upcoming giant telescopes will soon be able to probe the atmospheric compositions of some of these extrasolar worlds, and, who knows, to reveal chemical traces of life out there. If so, our view of the Cosmos will change forever…

This concert was performed and recorded on October 24, 2021, Flagey Brussels

Event organized by Science & Cocktails in collaboration with the International Solvay Institutes.

Performers:
Composer: Benjamin Glorieux
Cellists: Benjamin Glorieux, Bryggen String Orchestra
Vincent Caers: electronics
Klaas Verpoest: live video

The End of Space and Time concert was the closing event of the Strings2019 conference at Flagey, cellist Benjamin Glorieux and I crafted a unique performance inspired by the concept of ‘strings’ in all their forms.

Eager to explore this theme to its fullest, we expanded the ensemble by inviting pianists Anthony Romaniuk and Rembrandt Frerichs with his trio—bringing the total to around 464 strings—and five fellow cellists, contributing another 24 strings. While electronica wizard Jo Thielemans didn’t bring any strings, his electronic sounds added an additional texture to the performance.

The result was as multifaceted as a diamond, with the timeless music of J.S. Bach serving as a subtle thread throughout. Yet, the sounds that emerged were entirely fresh, as if sprinkled with stardust from the nearly 500 strings, brought to life through the performers’ creativity and the otherworldly acoustics of Studio 4.

13.08.2019: Studio 4 – Flagey, Brussels

Performers:
Cellists: Benjamin Glorieux, Liesemarie Beelaerts, Seraphine Stragier, Pieter Matthynssens, Pieter-Jan De Smet, Harmen Goossens
Anthony Romaniuk: piano
Jo Thielemans: electronics
The Rembrandt Frerichs trio: Piano, Double base, drums
Klaas Verpoest: live video

Based on a novella by Philippe Claudel Het kleine meisje van meneer Linh is a moving story about a man who has to flee his country with the little he has left.
Koen de Sutter does the show as a monologue. Because De Sutter is alone on stage and performs all of the roles – the narrator, Mr Linh and Mr Bark – it gains a special flavour, atmosphere and significance. It becomes a show about the power of the imagination and of portrayal. De Sutter tells the story with all of the means available to him: dramatic action, words, images, music, sound, projections….

Credits
director: Guy Cassiers
text: Philippe Claudel
with:
– Koen de Sutter (Dutch spoken version)
– Jérome Kircher (French spoken version)
– Jules Werner (English spoken version)
– Lluis Homar (Spanish spoken version)

video design: Klaas Verpoest
sound design: Diederik de Cock
kostuumadvies: Tim Van Steenbergen
production: Toneelhuis

30.09.18: Het Kleine meisje van Mijnheer Linh (premiere) | Het Toneelhuis – Antwerpen
15.03.18: La petite fille de monsieur Linh (premiere) | Le Phénix – Valenciennes (FR)
07.12.18: La néta del Senyor Linh (premiere) | Temporada Alta Festival – Girona (ES)
03.05.19: Monsieur Linh and his child (premiere) | Les Théâtres de la ville de Luxembourg – Luxembourg (LU)
On tour in Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Luxembourg,… (visit Toneelhuis for all data)

“Very beautiful production, because the essence of the story is about a search for contact that transcends inadequate communication through language. Cassiers works with a ‘moving typography’ to give the very poetic but also concise and purified text a kind of deeper emotion.”– Evelyne Coussens in Klara , 2 October 2017

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a radical, an extremely important but also controversial innovator. He is also one of the most important musical minds of the past century. His electronic music inspired several generations of musicians, even outside the realm of so-called art music. He broke rules and traversed boundaries. His music was extremely complex, but in all the abstraction it is also sensual and engaging.

14.01.16: Cosmic Pulses – De Bijloke, Gent
15.06.18: Porto Franko Festival – Ivano-Frankvivsk (UKR)
23.11.18: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival – Huddersfield (UK)
07.12.18: John Doe Gallery – New York (US)

Performers:
Thomas R. Moore: trombone
Klaas Verpoest: video
Patrick Delges, Centre Henri Pousseur: electronics

In a production of:
Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent | Centre Henri Pousseur

Signale zur Invasion | Karlheinz Stockhausen from Klaas Verpoest on Vimeo.

In Crippled Symmetry Feldman builds on repetitive motifs (patterns), knotting and weaving his sounds the way Anatolian nomads make their carpets. It is from those carpets that Feldman borrowed the concept of imperfect or ‘crippled’ symmetry. Listening to Feldman’s work is a strange but overwhelming experience.

Performed by: Het Collectief
Thomas Dieltjens, piano & celesta | Toon Fret, flute | Tom De Cock, percussion
Klaas Verpoest, Motion Design

14.04.2016: Crippled Symmetry, Miryzaal – Gent
20.04.2016: Crippled Symmetry, CC Maasmechelen – Maasmechelen

08.11.2014: Crippled Symmetry, SLOW (36H) / Concertgebouw – Brugge

Helemaal desintegreren mocht de tijd tijdens het prachtige Crippled Symmetry van de Amerikaanse componist Morton Feldman, gebracht door Het Collectief met visuals van Klaas Verpoest. Breekbare motieven dreven anderhalf uur lang als eilandjes door de stilte en braken met elk lineair concept van tijd.
De Standaard