Een passie voor klank

Eric Sleichim (1958) was a member of the Brussels group Maximalist! in the 1980s, but founded his own saxophone quartet BL!NDMAN in 1988. With this ensemble, he wanted to break away from the protocol of a classical concert and, above all, discover new sound possibilities and a new repertoire for saxophone quartet. More than 30 years later, a BL!NDMAN concert is still an experience. All this time, BL!NDMAN has stood for a passionate search for sounds and a meeting place of various artistic disciplines. Sleichim arranged Renaissance music and partitas by Bach for his quartet and composed quite a lot himself for his ensemble. The saxophone quartet also grew into a true collective. Sleichim took young musicians under his wing and so, in addition to BL!NDMAN [sax], there are now three more young quartets: BL!NDMAN [strings], BL!NDMAN [vox] and BL!NDMAN [drums].
In this portrait, the camera follows Eric Sleichim during rehearsals, concerts and in his study. He tests out saxophones for the Parisian saxophone house ‘Selmer’, composes, directs his musicians, plays music and talks endlessly about his passion. For the fascination for sound remains the common thread throughout the portrait. In this programme, Sleichim plays in Jan Fabre’s performance Angel of Death and visits an exhibition by minimalist artist Richard Serra, with whom he feels a great kindred spirit. He works with the young quartet BL!NDMAN [drums] on Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s performance Roman Tragedies.