Robert van Heumen: composer, musician, improvisor on laptop and controllers

Robert van Heumen is an electronic composer-performer using an extended laptop instrument to perform highly immersive and hyper-dynamic electro-acoustic music. As a musician, live sampling is his main tool. With a joystick and other tactile controllers, live sampled source sounds are gesturally manipulated and reworked within open ended narratives. Van Heumen is constantly searching for new strategies for live sampling and for the perfect balance between free improvisation and structured music. The laptop is used in an instrumental, tactile way, connecting action to sound like any acoustic instrument, and is used in live performance as well as in the studio to generate sonic material for fixed-media works. Van Heumen is performing regularly with Shackle (with electro-flutist Anne LaBerge), ABATTOIR (with cellist/vocalist Audrey Chen), SKIF++ (audio-visual trio with Jeff Carey & Bas van Koolwijk), Whistle Pig Saloon (with guitarist John Ferguson) and Davis/VanHeumen (with bass clarinetist Gareth Davis). He uses STEIM's live sampling software LiSa and realtime audio-synthesis software SuperCollider.

Recent electronic works include the electronic compositions Stranger and Fury, which are performed in multichannel and semi-improvised environments. Fury is an expression of suppressed anger and inspired by the Dust Bowl period in the United States. Stranger is a composed work as well as a research in the compositional process, built as a family tree from a series of basic samples and inspired by L'Étranger by Albert Camus and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. These compositions were performed by himself at conferences like the International Computer Music Conference, the Spark Festival and the Sound and Music Computing Conference. Het Geluid van de Machine is a composition for Disklavier, laptop-instrument and flute with electronics, premiered at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek in September 2011. This composition exposes the Disklavier's mechanism and produces freshly squeezed music. Like Harry is a theatrical soundwalk in collaboration with writer and theatermaker Simone de Jong, which also premiered at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2011. Other works include Fashion Week and fibonacci scroll, stop-motion videos by visual artist Susan Happersett for which Van Heumen composed the soundtrack.

Van Heumen documents his performances as well as his composed work on labels like Creative Sources Recordings, Evil Rabbit Records and Fridgesound. He is regularly teaching workshops on live electronics and structured improvisation at universities and other educational organizations, both in the Netherlands and internationally. Van Heumen worked for 10 years at the Studio for Electo-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam as project manager, curator of the Local Stop concert series and member of the artistic committee. In the theater he worked with director Dirk Groeneveld, writer Simone de Jong and choreographer Anouk van Dijk. In a previous life he was a trumpet player, mathematician and software programmer. He still reads mathematician and philosopher L.E.J. Brouwer.

"The trio deliver lively and unpredictable digital high-energy bursts by working in a very dynamic and inter-active environment, where one’s merest gesture or thought is transformed instantly into powerful sweeps of crackly texturised beltage. Fine work which transcends many of the clichés and pitfalls of laptop music."
Massimo Ricci (Paris Atlantic) on SKIF++'s CD .next

"... the whole set is sensuous fun as well as intellectually stretching."
Brian Morton (The Wire) on Whistle Pig Saloon

"... dynamic, ever changing, crackling, loud and soft, buzzing and hissing. Vibrant music this is, great music, moving away from the delicate structures of microsound into the land of noise based textures."
Frans de Waard (Vital Weekly) on Fury

"Digital brutalism in free form, vehement expressions, heightened efforts, wailings and atonal lamentations are all performed with uninterrupted breathing techniques - the electronic manipulation is relentless, full of powerful distortions, melancholic melodies and experimental combinations. Authentic, intricate compositions [...]."
Aurelio Cianciotta (Neural.it) on ABATTOIR

"[...] Stranger in any case represents an intriguing chapter in the output of a hardly pigeon-hole-able emerging sound artist. There's more than meets the ears, though it takes persistence to find the combination needed to enter this obscure area, halfway through the remnants of excruciating memories and the blurred idea of an uncertain future."
Massimo Ricci (The Squid's Ear) on Stranger

"This is musique concrete that has torn away from its formal, academic origins. Deconstruction and reassembly in nasty extremis."
David Stubbs (The Wire) on SKIF++'s CD SK++ [01,02,03,04,00]

"Office-R(6) literally sculpt rather than play the music using acoustic instruments and computers yeilding a music that is subtly seismic and eminently contemporary."
Musicreaction on OfficeR's CD Recording the Grain

download resume | download HiRes promo photos

Selected Works

Het Geluid van de Machine, a composition for Disklavier and computer - commissioned by the Conlon Foundation, premiered at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek (2011)
Soundwalk Like Harry in collaboration with Simone de Jong, premiered at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (2011)
Untitled electronic composition commissioned by the Call & Response sonic arts organisation London (2011) (in progress)
Soundtrack for stop-motion video Fashion Week by Susan Happersett (2010)
Soundtrack for stop-motion video fibonacci scroll by Susan Happersett (2010)
CD '.next' by SKIF++ on Creative Sources Recordings (2009)
CD ABATTOIR on Evil Rabbit Records (2009)
CD Stranger on Creative Sources Recordings (2009)
CD Whistle Pig Saloon on Creative Sources Recordings (2009)
Radioplay 'No Man's Land' - commissioned by the CEM studio at WORM Rotterdam, premiered on Dutch radio on Dec 6 (2008)
Electronic composition Stranger - premiered as multichannel version at Culturelab, Newcastle (UK) (2008)
CD 'SK++[01,02,03,04,00]' by SKIF++ on the fridgesound label (2008)
CD Fury on Creative Sources Recordings (2008)
Solo semi-improvised piece 'They Would Get Angry Sometimes' performed at Brown University, Providence (USA, 2007) and <>Tag, The Hague (NL, 2007)
Ambient CD 'Silent' on the fridgesound label (2007) - based upon a specific synthesis process used by James Tenney
4-channel composition Fury (after anger) - commision for the Sonic Circuits festival in Washington DC (2006)
4-channel composition '12 Bullets' - commision for STEIM's Noiseroom (2006) - also presented at the 5 days off festival in Melkweg Amsterdam 2006
Headphone composition for the audiovisual production Solitude (2005) with Arnoud Noordegraaf (video) - premiere at the November Music Festival (Den Bosch NL, Gent BE 2005), further performances: Festival a/d Werf (Utrecht NL 2006), Effenaar (Eindhoven NL 2006), Junge Hunde Festival (Arhus DK 2006), Facelifters Lab (Maastricht NL 2006), Korzo Theater (Den Haag NL 2007)
CD 'Mundane Occurrences and Presentations' with the electro-acoustic sextet OfficeR - released in 2006 on Lampse
CD 'N - Live at STEIM' - with various groups of the N Collective - released in 2005 on the Alternative Version label (London)
Compositions for choreographies 'am i out?' (2000), 'Alien' (2001), 'Diva' (2002), 'Amour Fou' (2003), 'Drink me' (2004), 'STAU' (2004), 'Derivatives' (2005) by Anouk van Dijk

Selected Bands

Shackle (with Anne LaBerge on flute and electronics, focussing on restriction in material and structure, pieces are semi-randomly suggested by the computer, Shackle's aim is to explicity and subtly exploit shackling in both concept and material) - commissioned by the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst NL, selected performances: Bimhuis Amsterdam in the Field of Ears program (2009), OT301 Amsterdam (2008), DNK Amsterdam (2008 & 2007), STEIM's Micro Jamboree (2006)
ABATTOIR (with Audrey Chen on cello and vocals) - selected performances: Japan Society NYC (2010), Logos Gent (2010), STEIM's Local Stop (2009), Nachtjournal Cologne (2009)
Whistle Pig Saloon (with guitarist John Ferguson deconstructing the guitar) - selected performances: Borealis Norway (2009), DNK Amsterdam (2009), STEIM's Local Stop (2008)
SKIF++ (with Bas van Koolwijk on interactive video and Jeff Carey on laptop) - selected performances: NYCEMF festival (2009), Pixileration festival Providence (2007), Issue Project Room & Galapagos/NIME NYC (2007), Modulate Birmingham UK (2007), Sonic Acts XI festival Amsterdam (2006), Sonic Circuits festival Washington DC (2006), toon festival Haarlem NL (2006)
OfficeR (electro-acoustic sextet bringing structured improvisation in a very unique way - with Koen Nutters, Jeff Carey, Morten Olsen, Dirk Bruinsma, Oguz Buyukberber) - selected performances: Trondheim, Norway (2007), Washington DC (Sonic Circuits festival 2006), Berlin (Ausland 2005, Transmediale festival 2003), Geneva (Cave12 2006), Norway (Borealis & Numusic festivals 2005), The Netherlands (Gaudeamus Live Electronics festival 2006, Sonic Acts XI festival 2006, Bimhuis Amsterdam 2005)

ABATTOIR at STEIM CONCERT: Electronic Music Lab, 8 May 2010, Japan Society, NYC USA

In an interview with Anne LaBerge for the Kraakgeluiden seminar 'Different codes' (February 2005):

'I started playing improv seriously with officeR, an electro-acoustic sextet, in 2001. At that time we started thinking about structures in improvised music, searching for ways to get away from the much-used improv paradigm of slowly building up drone-like atmospheres that even so slowly build down, or the massive hectic noise-like sessions where everybody tries to make himself heard. During the years, we build a specific 'language' that is very difficult to describe, but the better is it recognized when heard. It focuses more on sound than on melody or rhythm. Structures describe a type of sound and a type of communication, more than a pattern in time or pitch.

My setup consists of a laptop, a midi controller and a joystick, with which I control LiSa, a live sampling software that enables me to treat pre-recorded sounds as well as live-sampled sounds in various ways. With the joystick I can react quickly and intuitively on other musicians, building up a lively communication without locking myself up in the computer. I believe listening and reacting - together with collective experience building - is the key to interesting improvisation. And to me improvised music is interesting when I can see communication and concentration in people, no matter how the sound is generated.

Improvisation for me is very intuitive. Concious thought usually happens after the fact, in retrospect. Of course I evaluate then, and try to learn from it, but when I'm playing I don't rationalize.'