Matthew Herbert

If you’re a drummer you can just bang the drums. Of course you could also make a cup of tea. Providing you share a stage with Matthew Herbert. And we shared the stage on November 11, 2010.This is how a review started in dutch newspaper Trouw. November Music 2010 invited me and my Starvinsky Orkestar for their 2010 edition.  Programmer Bert Palinckx and me, independently had a wish to to ‘something’ with Matthew Herbert. This ‘something’ turned out to be a very inspiring collaboration where Starvinsky Orkestar played my acoustic renditions of Matthew’s basically electronic pieces, professionally deconstructed and reformed again by Matthew, live on stage.

And Trouw continues: The British producer is unrivalled when it comes to eliciting music from unexpected sources. He samples telephone directories and pigs as well as his own pearly whites. During November Music, the festival for contemporary music in Den Bosch, Herbert used the sounds a drummer produces when using an espresso machine. He was there by invitation of the Starvinsky Orkestar, an international orchestra led by Dutch composer and arranger Martin Fondse. Their collaboration is an excellent example of the open-minded approach that November Music champions. Officially, this was a one-off but let’s hope someone else will get the bright idea to put them together on a stage.

Trouw, 13-11-2010