NL FR EN  

Champ d’Action : history

Champ d’Action was founded by Serge Verstockt in 1988. At that time, it was difficult for contemporary music to find a forum in Flanders. Music by Flemish composers –amongst whom the internationally renowned Karel Goeyvaerts – was seldom performed in this very country.
Consequently, during those first years, Champ d’Action had a pioneering function. Strong connections with contemporary visual art in Flanders resulted in a strong and almost immediate embedment of Champ d’Action within the expanded field of contemporary art in general. The ongoing attention for the work by Flemish composers resulted in different creations and in launching a series of CDs around the work of Karel Goeyvaerts in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain. Additionally, important works by foreign composers are being introduced ad commissions to create are given on an international level in order to locate local work in a critical and artistically demanding context.
Antwerp 93, Cultural Capital of Europe, was an important step in the development of Champ d’Action.
Under the impulse of this year, some important creations are commissioned (amongst others to the Finish composer Kaija Saariaho) and a CD is released with creations by Flemish composers. Later, Champ d’Action will start up issuing its own series of CDs (cd-a) for experimental work which results in a collaboration with the American CD-label Mode Records.. The first CD is dedicated to the work by Kaija Saariaho and met with enthusiastic international acclaim ( it was awarded 4 stars from the BBC). Amongst the high points of the past years were the collaboration with Irvin Arditti (deSingel 2000), the performance of eh Heiliger-Dankgesang quartet by Dick Raaijmakers which lasts for 8 hours at the Holland Festival and the collaboration with composer Serge Verstockt and architect Werner Vandermeersch which resulted in 10 open air concerts by Screens during the Summer of Antwerp. Screens was performed in 2002 in an adapted version in the Concertgebouw in Bruges in the context of Format and of Bruges 2002.
After an absence of 5 years, Serge Verstockt is once again the artistic director of Champ d’Action.
He intends to make a flexible organisation of Champ d’Action which evolves along with artistic needs. Champ d’Action ought to be a place where new forms of music receive support and can develop: in which direction does music evolve and what is its social relevance. A more developed type of communication and participation with other artistic disciplines will play an important role. In this regard, a structural type of collaboration with the M HKA is an important issue.
Another part of its artistic mission will consist of the further extension of a studio for electronics in which composers will get the opportunity to experiment.

For complementary information: www.champdaction.be