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review+ audio + interview review „... Van Ekeren sings the songs during the concert with a raw voice from which the blues spatters off. The gifted pianist however, plays so beautifully that not one moment he detracts from the baroque compositions of Bach.... The whole performance is very convincing, but two songs are really very overwhelming." review „... The intimate setting works well for the heartfelt and softly delivered words and music of Willem van Ekeren......" „... The essence of Bukowski, often known as the Poet Laureate of Skid Row, forgives minor pianist slip-ups and it is precisely this relaxed atmosphere that adds to the performance....."„... the oh-so-casually sublime Peace....""... but this, and van Ekeren’s obvious dedication to his art, only inspires further reading, and listening. The quickest hour at the festival yet..." review „... glorious merging of Bach’s compositions and Bukowski’s words....." review „... unexpectedly churns out some wonderful music......" „... Yet van Ekeren combines them with such affection – Bukowski’s words have never been spoken so softly – that these two unlikeliest of matches make beautiful music together. It’s truly an achievement: I doubt I’ll listen to Bach or read Bukowski again without recalling van Ekeren. Almost like The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon, but this time, it really works." review „... On the other hand, I get extremely excited about novel cultural combinations, so I should have known better - that Willem van Ekeren's performance would be quite interesting......" „... The performance was as comfortable as if he had invited us into his home...." interview "An interview with Bach-Bukowski man Willem van Ekeren, in which he reveals he just wants to enjoy himself, with this non-western approach to music, closer to the wounds, more crying; being sucked into the black holes of Bach." review „... the Dutch musician Willem van Ekeren proved impressively how you can combine "Buk" with Johann Sebastian Bach......" review „... The Dutchman Willem van Ekeren mixes the barock Bach with the German American Underground-poet in such an original way, that there appears a kind of classically inspired Bar jazz. It sounds cool and inspired........" review „... he marries 13 parts of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier with 13 poems from Bukowski's 1992 book The Last Night of the Earth Poems, singing the lyrics in a voice reminiscent of Tom Waits or -really- Billie Holiday. The result is a strange alchemy, a sympathetic if at times dissonant collision between the mathematical elegance of Bach and the gritty fever of late-era Bukowski. ... Van Ekeren has performed the suite in concerts across Europe, and he’s anxious to bring his show to the United States. Potential promoters might want to consult the aforementioned Web site." report „... But the effort and discipline had effect. The result is classical music that, due to the actual problems about which Van Ekeren sings, - like the atmosphere during the Friday night traffic jam - al of a sudden becomes nowadays music... The audience enjoyed the heavy and sometimes a bit disconsolate songs like Blasted apart with the first breath and Flophouse varied with more cheerful counterparts like The bluebird. As Willem van Ekeren long after 10 PM announced his last number, there was sadness to be heard from the audience. But the artist could change little about it. ''Well, I, just don't have any more numbers'' he smiled.....“ Interview „... A strange combination. But is certainly has something, when you hear Willem van Ekeren grate the lyrics with his raw, bluesy voice over the fugues and preludes from the 18th century, lyrics that are marinated with alcohol...... Van Ekeren has already been called the young Tom Waits. ..At the moment he works on a new series of Bach and Bukowski. "According to the same principle, but with more loose and fast pieces.....“ cd review „... Van Ekeren's singing reminds of the young Tom Waits and his piano playing is as sensitive as technically excellent... Who once heard the cd, will not take it out of the cd player very fast. .... For Bach connoisseurs Van Ekerens play might be a comparable milestone as Jacques Loussiers legendary "Play Bach" record. ..... Even the late Bukowski would, at all Coolness, be moved to tears.“ concert review "...Willem van Ekerens Manager tells about the almost mystic situation, when Bach and Bukowski shove together in the musician. His concert carries you away, he plays Bach fugues at the grand piano and sings at the same time with a Blues-Jazz voice Bukowski poems, and he does that so skilful, that it works loose and very real, as if Bach wrote his compositions specially for this purpose. ..." report of cd and concerts With a full colour picture of Willem singing at the piano, Luister reports about Bach-Bukowski. "...Meanwhile the cd 'Bach-Bukowski' came out, with Willem van Ekeren on piano. He sings the poems himself, and the sound of his voice reminds of Bob Dylan's - to name another special combination...." cd review "..... Mainly the poems stand out better than in normal reading .......Bach makes a beautiful combination with Bukowski...... With Bach's serene compassion, Bukowski's density of disillusion and cynism becomes bearable , without getting really beautiful. Because esthetisising of accident, that would be really obscene. Bearable, just that. And that is exactly right." cd review ".....The result is difficult to describe and reminds one the most of the sadly sounding road songs of Tom Waits. The music does not go nicely with the lyrics all the time, but more often the blending is that successful, that you would swear that Bach wrote the music especially for Bukowski." cd review There is somebody who finds Bach-Bukowski a bad idea. For those who want to hear an other than positive sound. ".....To add something to Bach's music, one must not just be good, but one must also have strong reasons to do so. Van Ekeren scores frightfully low at both." ..... "Till now the critics were all very positive..... apparently none of them asks himself why they like Bach-Bukowski so much. ........ Because, imagine these reviewers are right, imagine that the result is truly 'silenced' and full of touching melancholy, that Van Ekeren reaches a 'surprisingly new tonality'. Whose merit is that?...." radio interview Willem tells about Bach-Bukowski during approximately 15 minutes and the number Peace was broadcasted. panel review cd Guided by Bas Heijne Maartje Somers, Dirk van Weelden and Thomas Verbocht spoke about the cd enthousiastically: "...incredible sympathetic, self-conceited, almost touching 'searchiness', that is very beautiful about it. ...sincerely found ..musically to the point..On his own he has put these things on top of each other, like transparent layers, and that is done very beautifully...Especially the sound of his voice has a kind of clear shiverness....a shiverness that he controls, steers well and bends very beautifully.....To make it work, he has to play it like this, hesitant, sometimes retained, it has something searching, feeling, clumsy, looking for the purification, that is why it fits....It is vulnerable, has nothing bumptious, that is so beautiful about it. It is someone who shows what he has found himself.......very authentic......the music fits miraculously well to it.....beautiful, mollifying combination, sometimes very touching....The poetry turns into a melody... and thatt is an enormous achievement of this Van Ekeren.....Purified, open, certain impartiality towards Bach and Bukowski.... He drew it to himself and gave us exactly that what hit him. .....out of a huge respect for the poetry ....Insensitive for what the rest of humanity on other places on earth has done with it and that certainly has something.....it is that loneliness that commands respect." tv review About the first two editions of "'Boeken op Zondag": 'The most striking figure till now was Willem van Ekeren, who sings poetry of Bukowski at Bach's piano music played by himself. Very special.' 'So he is going to break through?' 'If his agent can book him for the TV Show of Ivo Niehe, I'll give him more chance.....' tv performance During this programme Willem played and sang "The bluebird prelude in g sharp minor" and "Peace prelude in D flat major". Due to the circumstances Willem had to play on his electrical piano, which is a bit of a pity. One can see the broadcasting at the website "Boeken op Zondag". interview Big, beautifully designed interview, with for example funny incidents from the past. "....... in the Circus theatre in Scheveningen. Just before the break the whole back wall collapsed. I made a mistake." (About Willem's job with the theatre, webmaster) ........ "Because I extra developped my left hand, playing the guitar, I got much more access to the complex bass lines of Bach's piano music. ..... Sometimes the lines follow the pattern of Bach's music, often I let Bukowski's rawness collide with Bach's purity............Each time, whether I rehearse or perform, I notice that the coherence gets bigger. As if Bach and Bukowski gradually understand each other better all the timer. .......... I have always had the idea, that someday I had to make something that cannot go to pieces. If you create something, it has to be with the conviction that it is made out of one piece, not hesitant or reserved. I hope I succeeded in this with Bach-Bukowski." cd review ".....In a genius way Van Ekeren (...) combined....and because of that, the numbers sound as if it was always meant to be like that. Bach appears to be closer to somebody like Randy Newman (partly due to the voice of Van Ekeren, although his voice also reminds of Tom Waits from time to time), than you ever thought was possible......" concert review "...In the beginning of his concert it seems
difficult to listen to these two kinds of voices at the same time.....But
gradually those two flow together, and you start enjoying the going
along of, or recalcitrating this double music, the refined phrasing
and starting of the vocal lines, the accents that do or don't fall
at the same time. In short: enjoying this transverse osmosis of
grating, tearing, heartbreaking singing, caught in the clearly articulated
'Welltempered' that allows itself to fold on authority." announcement On the internet Eric announces the Open Air Concert
in The Hague and writes: interview “….Willem van Ekeren manages to create a sensational synthesis between his raw, bluesy voice and the lightly flowing sounds of Bach......Van Ekeren: "In fact it's impossible.......It's like rope-dancing.....The strange thing is that yet I do feel a kind of freedom to do this"....." This link also shows a photo of Willem. There is a mistake in this article: it is not the Be Kind fugue in D flat major that comes closest to Gounods 'Ave Maria', but the Peace prelude in D flat major. cd-review "....With a low budget this cd reaches a recording level that not many cd's reach nowadays.....Those to whom this does not appeal have a gap in their cultural education........" cd of the week art of the week cd-review “….subtle tonal coherence......The result moves, and sounds more sincere than all Bach arrangements of the polished Hilliards, Jacques Loussiers and Swingle Singers together.” cd-review column ".....De cd is insane....You cannot believe
what you hear..." interview “…The pianist/singer Willem van
Ekeren does something very unlikely. He sings poems of literary
dipsomaniac Bukowski to pieces of Bach. He does that very convincingly..
..‘Bach and Bukowski are fountains'…” announcement review website mentions
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