R.I.P. Funeral songs
With the R.I.P. project FES ventures itself to a funeral repertoire; 12 newly composed farewell songs for the funeral of the musicians. All 15 of them die, one by one, by disease, accidents, old age and other mishaps, pick your choice. And so, as the concert progresses, the orchestra gets smaller and smaller, a grim preview of what FES will eventually overcome if no substitutions for the dead musicians are made. The order of the dying musicians is determined by fate: this has resultsed in an arbitrary and perhaps illogical but nevertheless interesting orchestral occupation. So imagine this: the FES concert starts off with the whole band, then the drummer leaves the stage because of a fatal fall while putting out the garbage. The rest of the orchestra plays his farewell song. Then the accordeon player follows, a blood vessel rupture. The rest of the band now plays his In Memoriam. This continues until only one musician remains on stage playing his own requiem, he then also disappears and leaves the stage empty. And at that moment all the musicians are reunited, like the dead in ‘Blues for Gaston’ by Roland Topor. The reunion is a wild and exciting piece of whirling music, a grotesque death march putting its tongue out to Death. R.I.P. challenges fate, shows the beauty in tragedy and sorrow, and pays a macabre salute to life with a pleasant dose of black humor.
Compositions: Peter Vermeersch, Peter Vandenberghe
& Tom Wouters.
R.I.P. is a coproduction between Concertgebouw Bruges, Vooruit Ghent and Bonk vzw.
Playing period
22 October - 11 November 2012
Past dates
28 October 2011
Opperschmelz, Dudelange, Luxembourg
27 October 2011
Zuiderpershuis, Antwerp, Belgium
19 October 2011
Concertgebouw Bruges, Belgium (première)
17 October 2011
De Singer, Rijkevorsel, Belgium (try-out)