Les Ateliers Claus and Oorstof present Entasis: Akira Sakata, Giovanni Di Domenico, Giotis Damianidis, Aleksandar Škorić  in a double bill with Christof Kurzmann & Hanne De Backer duo. Under the Entasis banner Sakata, Di Domenico, Damianidis and guest Škorić play intense spiritual music without boundaries, in memory of Christos Yermenoglou. Kurzmann (Made To Break, Nu Ensemble) and De Backer (g a b b r o) blend dense electronics, growling baritone sax and bass clarinet for the first time on stage.

ENTASIS:
AKIRA SAKATA – GIOTIS DAMIANIDIS – GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO – ALEKSANDAR ŠKORIĆ

Entasis is an international quartet consisting of Akira Sakata (clarinet, alto sax), Giovanni Di Domenico (piano), Giotis Damianidis (guitar) and Christos Yermenoglou (drums) who sadly past away in January. Mofaya drummer Aleksandar Škorić will respectfully replace him. The band released its first record, Hōryū​-​ji in May 2019 on Mr. Nakayasi Records/el NEGOCITO Records. Hōryū-ji or Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law is one of the powerful seven great Buddhist temples in Japan. This temple has entasis, in architecture, the application of a convex curve to a surface for aesthetic purposes. It also serves an engineering function regarding strength, the key word of that brought together this quartet. Sakata, Di Domenico, Damianidis and Škorić dedicate this concert and the European tour to Yermenoglou.

CHRISTOF KURZMANN & HANNE DE BACKER

Over the last couple of years Antwerp based baritone sax and bass clarinet player Hanne De Backer made her mark with two well received g a b b r o releases, collaborations with artists like Terrie Ex, Ken Vandermark, Paal Nilssen-Love, Marker, Signe Emmeluth, Mudskipper, Condor Gruppe, Farida Amadou, Stan Maris, and Audrey Lauro and even walked and played music along the Belgian coastline in full lockdown with Raf Vertessen, Andreas Bral and … Blanche, a camel.

Now for the first time she teams up with Christof Kurzmann, one of the mainstays of improvised electronic music, Austria’s Christof Kurzmann. Until 2005 he ran the influential charhizma label – with a focus on improvised electronic music and avant-garde – and his collaboration track record reads like a who is who of noise, free jazz, electronic and improvised music: John Butcher, Ken Vandermark, Made To Break, Mats Gustafsson, Sofia Jernberg, Kevin Drumm, Steve Lacy, Christian Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke, Taku Sugimoto, eRikm, Jerome Noetinger …