‘Wim Mertens - SOLD OUT’

Line up:
Wim Mertens, piano, vocals
Liesbeth Baelus, violin
Lode Vercampt, cello

Mertens started creating music in 1980, after working as a musicologist and a radio producer. For Amusement Only, his first release, is an electronic music recording that used exclusively the sound of pinball machines. This was followed by At Home-Not at Home (1981),Vergessen (1982), Struggle for Pleasure (1983) and the album Maximizing the Audience in 1984. 

Over the past 40 years, he has developed his musical language into a normative vocabulary by writing for different instrumental ensembles, vocal compositions and pieces for symphony orchestras. 

Today, Mertens’ recording catalogue counts more than 70 CDs, which he regularly performs across Europe, North and Central America, Japan, Thailand and Russia.                                               
Wim Mertens performed his work in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Bilbao, Budapest, Bucharest, Brussels, Dublin, Florence, Geneva, Gdansk, Granada, Guanajuato, Hamburg, Houston, Kazan, Kyoto, Los Angeles, Madrid, Milano, Mexico City, Moscow, New York, London, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Paris, Parma, Porto, Preveza, Ravello, Rome, Rotterdam, Saõ Paulo, San Sebastian, Sevilla, Sofia, St Petersburg, Strasbourg, Thessaloniki, Tokyo, Jena and Venice among many others.                                                                                      
He continues to give solo concerts for piano and voice, as well as performances as part of duos, trios and string quintets. He also performs with symphony orchestras in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Portugal. 

To celebrate his 40th artistic anniversary, the Belgian composer is preparing a special concert programme that covers 1980-2020. Mertens will offer his fans a selection of his most well-known compositions and also introduces his upcoming album, The Gaze of the West (2020). 

His ambition is to create events that are ‘between deed and action’, or, ‘We that is I’ and ‘I that is We’. As the composer says: ‘It is the audience that ultimately determines the amplitude of the event to be created. The relationship between the composer and his audience is built on trust, or: 'I do what happens'.  It’s a fact that the doer knows it to be his duty. So that: when the note sounds, it becomes ‘the performance to duty’.

Inescapable. 
 
 www.wimmertens.com