Ernst Reijseger – Frames of Reference

Drombeg Stone Circle

I’m away for a few days so I’m leaving Ernst Reijseger in charge. He knows what to do.

Ernst Reijseger performs an improvised piece at the 4000 year old ‘Drombeg’ Stone Circle, situated in the very beautiful surroundings of West Cork in Ireland.

Born in Naarden (NL) in 1954, Reijseger started playing cello at the age of seven. At the Conservatory of Amsterdam his teacher Anner Bijlsma encouraged him to follow his own path in order to develop his musical vocabulary. This resulted in a life time of out-of-the-box and genre-bending collaborations and that enabled Reijseger to grow into a unique musical force.

Myles O’Reilly

Simon Kramer & Ernst Reijseger

Cellist Ernst Reijseger in the studio with painter Simon Kramer. One draws and the other plays, each responding to what he sees and hears. The video speaks for itself. It’s a fascinating dialogue.

Providence

Providence: Michael Moore, alto saxophone; Ernst Reijseger, cello; Han Bennink, drums

If we’d had a bit more time I would’ve liked to visit Clusone (the città dipinta – the painted town), just 35 km northeast of Bergamo, to see its medieval frescoes and its backwards clock. It’s also home to an annual international jazz festival, where the Clusone Trio got their name. They first performed a one-off concert here in the 1980s, which worked so well they became a regular group, famous for their quirky, often humorous improvisations – with spiritual leader Han Bennink percussively playing the god Dionysus to Moore’s Pan and Reijseger’s Abelard – Thom Jurek.

Ana

A lovely film by Myles O’Reilly of Reiseger/Fraanje/Sylla performing in the music department of Ludwig Beck in Munich. I’ve known Ernst Reijseger’s versatile cello improvising for many years, with Trio Clusone, Uri Caine, Tenore e Cuncordu de Orosei and Werner Herzog. Sometimes he plucks, sometimes he bows and sometimes he picks it up and strums it like a guitar. But this trio is new to me; heartfelt collaborations and inventions, full of surprises. They’re playing tonight, November 16, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the same bill as the Arild Andersen Quintet. Continue reading “Ana”

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams

Werner Herzog was granted exclusive access to the Chauvet Cave in the Ardèche Gorge in southern France. The caves are not normally open to the public. They were discovered in 1994 and found to contain the earliest known paleolithic cave paintings, now estimated to be 30,000 years old. Herzog made a beautiful and moving film, illuminating the paintings hidden so long in the dark. Continue reading “Cave Of Forgotten Dreams”