Pianist Reinier van Houdt returns to Café Oto with new music by Alvin Curran and a rendering of Christian Marclay's Ephemera

Legendary composer & improviser Alvin Curran wrote a new piece for 'pianist savant' Reinier van Houdt and it is called DEAD BEATS. DEAD BEATS is a poor man's music - minimal, stripped down, but never austere. It releases the wealth and exuberance of material that is either just rhythm, just melody, just harmony or just patterns. There are dead beats, letting all reminiscences to popular musics fall flat on a desert of empty durations.

There are harmonies tested in windtunnels by strumming hands, organized into choral reefs where enharmonicity leads the ear into shipwreck.

There are many-page melodies and obsessive rhythms There are arpeggiators distorted by mathematics, wandering melodies and chaotic outbursts.

All brought together into the radical black box of democracy, the piano.

Next to Dead Beats Reinier van Houdt will play a rendering of Christian Marclay's hybrid score Ephemera, consisting of collages made out of waste materials that feature musical notations as ornamental or decorative elements, for instance stuff like restaurant menus, candywrappers, napkins, stationery, showercurtain, tablecloths, ties, sleeves etc.

"Another standout performance at this year's hcmf// was a beguiling take on Marclay's 'Ephemera', performed by Reinier van Houdt. This man was born in a piano and there is no sound or impulse he could or would not convey. His late-night appearance was fierce; immersive, spirited and strange, it will echo in my mind for years to come." – Debra Richards (Jazzwise Magazine)