RAMEAU(x) — Improvising New Branches of Rameau’s music
This project investigates how Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 18th-century harpsichord music can generate new forms of jazz improvisation and electroacoustic performance today. Combining saxophone, voice, and live electronics, and collaborating i various duo settings with piano, harpsichord, saxophone and guitar, Nicolas Kummert develops performances that approach Rameau’s pieces as flexible materials able to shift, evolve, and inspire contemporary musical directions.
The project treats historical repertoire not as a fixed object to reproduce, but as material for experimentation and transformation. Through improvisation, embodied exploration and electronic modulation, the research develops new ways of interacting with Rameau’s music across Jazz, Early Music, and hybrid performance contexts.
Improvisation functions both as creative practice and research method, revealing overlooked dimensions of Rameau’s music while exploring more flexible, audio-tactile approaches to repertoire beyond conventional lead-sheet practices in jazz. The research will result in concerts, duo performances, a transdisciplinary production, an album recording, lecture-performances, and written reflections.
Results
The project will generate a coherent set of artistic outputs developed through De Assis’s experimental methodology and shaped by improvisation. These include:[Einde van tekstterugloop]– a solo performance for saxophone, voice, and electronics[Einde van tekstterugloop]– three duo projects with piano, harpsichord, and guitar[Einde van tekstterugloop]– an expanded transdisciplinary performance integrating elements from Rameau’s writings, philosophical dialogue, dance, and electroacoustic exploration.
Each output is conceived as a flexible assemblage: repeatable yet never fixed, responsive to performers, audiences, and performance contexts. A central aim is for these works to circulate not only within artistic research environments but also across jazz venues, Early Music festivals and conservatoire events. In this regard, the project explicitly addresses the practical question of audience relevance. Together with Jan Van den Borre (MA Festival, KlaraFestival), I will analyse current programming practices, identify how this research can contribute meaningfully to existing artistic ecosystems, and develop strategies for “selling” the concept to promoters—ensuring they, and their audiences clearly perceive the artistic and investigative value of the work.
A full-length album will document part of the artistic results and confront them to yet another part of the artistic ecosystem. A short promotional/mediation video will accompany the dissemination of the transdisciplinary work.
Discursive outputs will include at least one peer-reviewed article (FORUM+, ARJAZZ…), a Research Catalogue portfolio, lecture-performances and workshops at RCA. These formats will articulate how historical repertoire, improvisation, and electroacoustic practice can be integrated into a coherent artistic-research method that is theoretically grounded, artistically rigorous, and accessible to a wide public.
