Lampo to Commission Ankersmit

Lampo is pleased to announce it has received a grant through the Performing Arts Fund NL to commission a new work by Dutch artist Thomas Ankersmit.

He will create a composition for Serge analog synthesizer and digital electronics, intended to produce an effect of intensity or sensory overload through the combination of many, very small sounds. Ankersmit’s project is his first significant foray into the digital realm and first fully quadraphonic composition.

Ankersmit aims for a sense of overwhelming sound-mass and velocity, working with detailed, carefully designed sound elements.

The composition, as yet untitled, will have its international premiere for Lampo in March 2016, with additional concerts planned throughout the Netherlands, U.S. and other countries.

Ankersmit has performed twice before in the Lampo series—in February 2012 and September 2008.

Thomas Ankersmit (b.1979, Leiden, The Netherlands) is a composer, musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam.

Acoustic phenomena such as sound reflections, infrasonic vibration, otoacoustic emissions, and highly directional projections of sound have been an important part of his work since the early 2000s. His music is also characterized by a deliberate misuse of equipment, using feedback and disruptions to the signal, and the extremes of frequency and dynamics, to create visceral but finely detailed swarms of sound. Since 2006 his main instrument, both live and in the studio, has been the Serge analog modular synthesizer.

Ankersmit collaborated with Sicilian composer and performer Valerio Tricoli on Forma II, a series of electroacoustic pieces released on the PAN label, and on music based on the acoustics of abandoned radar domes. Both projects were honoured by Ars Electronica. Other recent collaborations include recording sessions with Kevin Drumm at GRM in Paris, and a new Phill Niblock composition for Serge modular synthesizer (Niblock’s first piece for an electronic instrument).