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.

In 1988 Eric Sleichim founded BL!NDMAN, a saxophone quartet with a traditional line-up, which develops new performance techniques and substantially expands the repertoire for the instrument by continually exploring the boundaries with other disciplines. `

From the very beginning, the quartet has organized workshops and masterclasses for young musicians. The wish for a more structural collaboration between quartets of different generations, resulted in becoming a collective of 4 quartets. 20 years of stage experience accumulated by the original quartet – BL!NDMAN [sax] – is shared with three young quartets: BL!NDMAN [drums], BL!NDMAN [vox] and BL!NDMAN [strings].

The BL!NDMAN-quartets perform separately as well as in different combinations and formations. All four feature together in the triptych: Kwadratur #1/Gobus (2008), #2/Transfo (2010) and #3/Cube (2012).

Eric Sleichim and BL!NDMAN win international acclaim with their multidisciplinary approach and from the very start receive assignments from the dance and theater world, develop multimedia performances, provide live music for several silent movies and are asked to develop particular programs for several specific occasions.
Sleichim writes an original score for the saxophone quartet as accompaniment with silent movies such as Buster Keaton’s ‘Steamboat Bill jr.’ (1996) and Kurutta Ippeiji’s ‘A Page of Madness’ (1993).
BL!NDMAN [sax] + [vox] present, together with Cristina Zavalloni, Eric Sleichim’s opera/performance ‘Utopia :: 47 – a very last Passion’, premiered at the Holland Festival with a subsequent tour in Flanders (2011).

In Autumn 2012, BL!NDMAN [sax] + [drums] present ‘Whiplash’, a program for which the ensemble especially commissions new pieces by Mayke Nas, Riccardo Nova, Wim Henderickx, Frederik Neyrinck and Eric Sleichim. This program will also be presented at the World Music Days 2012.

At the turn of the 21st century, Eric Sleichim concentrates on early music. In 1999 he arranges Bach’s Choral Partitas for organ into a renewing score for saxophones. ‘BL!NDMAN plays Bach’ becomes an instant success. This program is originally released by Universal Music. Subsequently other programs and cd’s with early music follow, often in collaboration with other specialized ensembles such as Huelgas Ensemble (2003 and 2010) and Collegium Vocale Ghent (2006). In 2012, Sleichim takes up the challenge to arrange early music for his complete collective (saxophones, singers, strings and percussionists on turntables) that will pay tribute to the Flemish polyphonist Adriaen Willaert in ‘Cross Talks’.

‘32 Foot/Sweelinck-Bach’ is a new program for BL!NDMAN [sax] with arrangements of organ variations, commissioned by Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht for their 2012-edition. Part of the program, in combination with arrangements of Bach’s Musikalisches Opfer, will also be presented at the Musikfestspiele Sanssouci Potsdam in June 2012.
The international release of a new CD ’32 Foot/Sweelinck-Bach’ is scheduled in spring 2013.

(update: 17/2/2012)

download bio-pdf here