Musarc and Heleen Van Haegenborgh 'Affordances'

Affordances presents four works written by Belgian composer Heleen van Haegenborgh for UK experimental choral ensemble Musarc between 2019–25. Scored for voices and free melodic instruments, each piece tunes into a different dimension of the vibrant and oracular polyphony of the chorus, its joyful hallucinations, its many languages and the many ways it has with the world as a body of bodies, singular and plural: at times sounding restrained and hauntingly beautiful, at other times triumphant and clear.

A new series of miniatures for violin written by van Haegenborgh especially for the album seems to look back on the process of making the music, speaking from the middle, like a mnemonic chorus of one.

Recorded over two days in April 2025 at Luca School of Arts, Ghent, Affordances offers a view into Musarc’s quietly radical, and maybe unrecordable, approach to what a choir can do and the unique space it can creates for artists, musicians and singers to develop new ideas.

Oli Kitching (conductor)
Joseph Kohlmaier (creative director)

Players:
Soloists for Implicit Affordances
Sophie Barshall
Sam Belinfante
Franziska Böhm
Joseph Kohlmaier
Kirsty Lewis
Michael Poole
Paul Klinck – violin

Instrumentalists for Hidden Affordance:
Andrea Bacallado Rivero – violin
Franziska Böhm – flute
Toon Callier – electric guitar
Paul Klinck – viola
Margit Kraft – cello
Iñaki Marcos Bueno – clarinet
Saori Miraku – synthesizer
Andy Cowton – percussion
Ada Egg Koskiluoma – percussion

Recorded at Luca School of Art, Ghent, March 2025
Music composed by Heleen Van Haegenborgh.

Tracklisting:
1. Material Affordance (Movement 1 of 3)
2. Material Affordance (Movement 2 of 3)
3. Material Affordance (Movement 3 of 3)
4. Implicit Affordances
5. Pieces for Violin
6. Possible Affordance
7. Hidden Affordance (Instrumental)
8. Hidden Affordance