Valentin Clastrier/Steven Kamperman

(France/The Netherlands)

Photo Credit: Allard Willemse

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Valentin Clastrier is one of the few performers in the world specialising in contemporary music for the hurdygurdy. He was introduced to the instrument in 1970, after having started his career as guitarist for Jacques Brel, and has over the years transformed it, culminating in his current electro-acoustic 27-string sound machine, built together with Austrian luthier Wolfgang Weichselbaumer. It’s a musical vehicle of buzzing magnificence: orchestral in scope, with innovative tonal possibilities utilising treated sounds and chromatic melodies which he displays to astounding effect in his collaboration with global-modaljazz- crossover clarinettist, composer and arch-improviser from the Netherlands, Steven Kamperman. The duo’s album, Fabuloiseries, a set of tone-poems of symphonic sweep, had multiple reviewers thumbing their thesaurus for fresh ways of describing their “extraordinary sound palettes”, “remarkable imagination” and “unprecedented inventiveness”. Now hear for yourself.

Steven Kamperman - clarinets, saxophone
Valentin Clastrier - hurdy-gurdy