Jaap Blonk

Jaap Blonk is a self-taught composer, voice performer and sound poet. His unfinished studies in physics, mathematics and musicology mainly created a penchant for activities in a Dada vein, as did several unsuccessful jobs in offices and other well-organized systems. He took up saxophone and started to compose music, at first mainly jazz pieces and music for experimental theatre. In reciting poetry, especially the works of Antonin Artaud, Lucebert and Kurt Schwitters, he discovered the directness and flexibility of vocal utterance, whether using meaningful words or not. At present, he has developed into a prolific writer/composer and a specialist in the performance of sound poetry, supported by a powerful stage presence and an almost childlike freedom at improvisation. On this debut CD he interprets his own work as well as the work of leading figures of sound poetry such as the Dadaist Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara and Rudolf Blümner