BL!NDMAN [sax]

Eric Sleichim founded this contemporary music ensemble in 1988. Since 2008 the saxophone quartet shares its 20 years of performing experience with three young quartets BL!NDMAN [drums], BL!NDMAN [strings] and BL!NDMAN [vox] making it possible for the two generations to exchange ideas.

Eric Sleichim, who had previously been a co-founder of the Maximalist! ensemble, put BL!NDMAN together in 1988. Starting out from the classic saxophone quartet, Sleichim concentrated on developing unconventional performance techniques in which he ranged over a variety of artistic disciplines and extended the repertoire for the instrument in a highly individual manner.
Eric Sleichim and BL!NDMAN won international acclaim with its multi-disciplinary approach and from the very start received assignments from the dance and theatre worlds, developed multimedia performances , provided live music for several silent movies and have been asked to especially develop programs for several specific occasions.

2000 sees Universal Music’s worldwide release of BL!NDMAN’s extremely unusual interpretation of Bach’s Choral Partitas as BL!NDMAN Plays Bach. This signals the start of long-term collaboration with this major record company and it also marks the start of a period in which the ensemble concentrates on early music for the first time. This interest results in collaborations with Paul van Nevel and Philippe Herreweghe BL!NDMAN works in a number of joint ventures with other ensembles, each time shedding new light on the combination of the saxophone with another set of instruments. In 2004 and 2005, for example, BL!NDMAN makes appearances with the Dutch Mondriaan String Quartet, the young Duo XXI ensemble (together they win the prestigious KBC Music Prize), the Ensemble Musique Nouvelles chamber orchestra and the Goeyvaerts Consort choral group. In 2006 the two main alliances are with Collegium Vocale Gent and the Quatuor Danel. In 2008 BL!NDMAN, together with Champ d’Action, compiles a programme focusing on James Tenney and other Spectralists and in 2010 with Paul Van Nevel and his Huelgas Ensemble.
Meanwhile BL!NDMAN continues as a collective of four quartets: BL!NDMAN [sax], BL!NDMAN [vox], BL!NDMAN [drums] and BL!NDMAN [strings] and in 2008 celebrates its 20th anniversary with all musicians of the collective with the performance 20×20, aka Kwadratur #1/Globus.
In 2007 and 2008 BL!NDMAN [sax] + [vox] present BL!NDMAN plays Buxtehude and Secret Masses.
In 2010, the collective presents Kwadratur #2/Transfo. The third part of the triptych is scheduled for 2012.
Before that date, BL!NDMAN [sax] + [vox] present, together with Cristina Zavalloni, Eric Sleichim’s opera/performance Utopia :: 47 – a very last Passion, to be premiered at the Holland Festival in June 2011.

(update: 23/2/2011)

extended bio until 2011