Discography

Runaway Horses

Filip Davidse, Saxofoon        Kimho Ip, Yangchin

The American Saxophone Journal (NOV/DEC 2009) said in a review about Runaway Horses: "… This is definitely a CD to have in your collection and it may be a "one of a kind." The duo of Davidse and Ip will certainly open new and exciting windows in your listening imagination. They are definitely two artists who have met on that different road, and have come up with some truly wonderful music as a result of that encounter."
Paul Wagner

New Folk Sounds (DEC2009/JAN2010): "The CD Runaway Horses, by Filip Davidse and Kimho Ip, proves how enchantingly beautiful the combination of a soprano saxophone and yangchin, the Chinese dulcimer, can be. (…)The music is enchanting because on the one hand it does so much justice the rich and versatile Chinese musical tradition and on the other hand it has enough distance from that tradition to give it an individual and modern spin. It's precisely this that makes "Runaway Horses" very accessible for the 'Western' oriented ears.(…) The harmonisations of the sublimely played instruments create a tension, an emotion, that would be absent in a purely conventional interpretation. (…) This unique project certainly deserves a follow up."
Rob van Niele


Runaway Horses- a metaphor illustrating the spirit of departing from home, making a step beyond tradition; towards the idea of re-interpretation and the search for new grounds in music. In addition it also means that while traveling one gets many new and fresh impressions, which happens in making the voyage of recording this album. With pieces ranging from the Mongolian folk tune Galloping Horse, to the silk and bamboo tune from the south-east China, San Liu, it does feel like being taken by the musicians all through China, and beyond.


This album presents the collaboration of two musicians interacting inter-culturally, Filip from Holland and Kimho from Hong Kong, China, ech has also worked musically across several cultures. The selected music, mostly influenced by East Asian folk music, combined with the aesthetics of European classical tradition, represents a state of mind in music that reflects a genuine interest to understand others' cultures and their subtle nuances. It is possibly the world's first ever recorded album of Chinese dulcimer (Yangchin) and soprano saxophone duet.
The soul of experimentalism is, however, by no means to be taken as deconstructing tradition. Whereas both instruments are not tightly strangled by a particular tradition, the duo lets the music speak for itself. Especially in pieces like Yang Guan Trio and The Saga, different musical traditions are put in such a natural dialogue that the difference between composed music and traditional music becomes rather indistinct, and probably unnecessary to be too clearly defined as well. Also, the overall philosophy of the recording is to maintain the live acoustic quality of the two instruments, including the ambiences and noises which contribute to the natural character of the playing.

A yangchin is a traditional Chinese string instrument, where the strings are hammered with two bamboo sticks. The instrument originally came from Persia, from there it spread to other countries, as Persia is located to the west of China the instrument became known as 'western instrument', or 'yangchin' in Chinese.

Kimho and Filip first met each other at a contemporary music festival in Amsterdam, some years ago and have been performing ever since. Mainly in The UK, where they played for example during the Edinburgh International Festival, in the Queen Elisabeth Hall in London and the Royal Scottish Academy for Dance and Music in Glasgow, and many more places and festivals. They also performed in The Netherlands in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and their performances have been broadcasted live on Radio4 and the BBC.
Next year they are planning to release a new CD which will coincide with their tour to Thailand and China.

The following pieces are on the CD Runaway Horses, and below you can also listen to some fragments.


1. San Liu     5.11
2. The wind of Yi    6.21
3. Xinjiang. Xinjiang     5.01
4. Yang Guan Trio    7.48
5. The Saga     5.33
6. Abyss of Misery     6.19
7. Nocturnal Rain     4.59
8. Galloping Horse     2.06
9. When Spring Comes Upon The River      7.45






The new album Runaway Horses is now available. To order the CD click on the icon below. You can use your credit card, the payment is secure and fast and is done through PayPal. The price per CD is €18,50 including delivery.

You can also use iTunes to download the pieces.

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For more information email to:
filip@filipdavidse.com






The Soviet Saxophone

by

OPUS35

Filip Davidse, Saxophone        Naomi Tamura, piano

In the former Soviet Union beautiful music was being written for the saxophone and piano. This new CD for the first time records these extraordinary pieces. Some of them, like "12 Melancholic Waltzes" haven't been recorded at all before.

Visit this page to listen to a number of fragments.

Click on the below icon to order a CD online. Paying is possible with credit card and is secure and fast by using the services of the well known company PayPal. The price per CD is €20,- including delivery.

The Soviet Saxophone

The Soviet Saxophone The saxophone was viewed as a 'suspicious' instrument in the former Soviet Union. The reason being that it belonged to the bourgeoisie and was associated with decadent jazz music. For these reasons serious composers did not write 'serious' music for the instrument. As a result there was no development of the instrument and its possibilities in different settings like there was in the West. This changed in the nineteen sixties and seventies, due to a group of young composers in Moscow, among them Dmitri Smirnov, Vladislav Shoot, Nikolai Korndorff and Faradj Karayev. All of these composers were members of the "Association for Contemporary Music" (ACM), a group formed in the seventies in Moscow. These composers felt restrained by the rules and regulations of the Composers Union and tried to find their own way, also by studying the musical developments in the West. The Composers Union was a government agency which controlled all aspects of a composers' life. From housing to the availability of sheet music paper. If a composer marched out of step, his life could be made very difficult by this Union. However these young composers did not want to write in the style of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, composers whose influence was enormous. Which was ironical, because after having suffered a lot of criticism and restraints earlier in their careers their music was now propagated as 'real Soviet music'. The members of the ACM tried to organize their own concerts and publications. They would gather in the flat of one of their members and discuss new works, ideas and developments. Their teacher mentor and friend Edison Denisov was also a part of this. They sought out contact with the West and invited for example the French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez and French saxophonist Jean-Marie Londeix. As the political and economical situation became increasingly unstable towards the end of the eighties, many artist and composers emigrated to the West. Elena Firsova and her husband Dmitri Smirnov (1948) went to England in 1991, as did Vladislav Shoot (1941). Vladimir Korndorff (1947-2001) emigrated to Canada. In this respect the life of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was just the opposite. After having started his career in Russia he left for Europe, and lived for quite some time in the West. However he returned for good to Russia in 1934, thinking he would be more successful there. He would only find out how difficult life really was under the communists. He wrote his Flute Sonata op.94 in 1943, during the second World War. Later, in collaboration with David Oistrakh, he transcribed it for violin. Maybe because, as famous pianist Sviatoslav Richter suggested: "flautists seemed in no great hurry to perform it". Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin (March 5 1953), causing his death to go unnoticed for some time.





Riot's Eve

IKKI

Made up of an unique blend of people and influences, IKKI manages to combine this into a whole new and fresh approach to jazz music. Brought together by the Japanese bass trombone player Matsumoto 'Santi' Kazushi, who also arranges the music, these musicians from Israel, Japan, Germany and the Netherlands create something that can perhaps only be labelled as unsophisticated sentimental powerjazz.
Not being tightly constrained by strict arrangements or conventions, the musicians find the freedom to spontaneously express their feelings. A big influence for IKKI has also been Aketagawa Shoji, Japanese Jazz pianist and ocarina maker/player who wrote the piece Alp.

Their name IKKI is actually a Japanese word, which originally meant a group of people united under the same spirit, purpose and project. Later on, it came to mean especially their demonstrating, rioting or uprising. The same elements are present in the pieces Hasta Siempre and Victor Jara Medley. Hasta Siempre is a popular Cuban song by Cuban singer-song writer Carlos Puebla, to commemorate Ernesto Guevara.
The Victor Jara Medley combines two pieces by Victor Jara, the Chilean singer song writer who was murdered during the coup d'้tat by Pinochet in 1973. El Derecho De Vivir En Paz (The Right to Live in Piece) is played in the beginning and the end, with La Partida (The Departure) in between.






Recorded on November 1&2, 2007
Power Sound Studio, Amsterdam
Engineer: Michiel Hollanders (Smoked Sounds)
Mastering: Jochem Jacobs (Split Second Sound)
Design: Dafna Linden
www.myspace.com/ikkimusic


RIOT'S EVE:
1. Riot's Eve
2. Hasta Siempre
3. A Night in Tunesia
4. Alp
5. Victor Jara Medley
6. Outroduction

MATSUMOTO 'Santi' Kazushi -- bass tromboneatsumoto
Thijs van Milligen -- alto sax
Filip Davidse -- tenor&soprano sax.
Peter Huber -- trumpet
Harpo 't Hart -- piano
Avishai Roet -- bass
Bernt Nellen -- drums

Binnenkort verkrijgbaar online. Neem voorlopig contact op met Filip Davidse (zie contact in het menu).
Hieronder een aantal samples van de CD.

Hasta Siempre
Riot's Eve
Victor Jara Medley