HU! is my newest musical project I am currently writing for. I got the “carte blanche 2021” with production house MetX to start up this project.
HU! is a jazz project that challenges todays’ gender stereotypes and the fact that there are still so few female jazz instrumentalists (about 5% of jazz instrumentalists are female). HU! plays with the traditional roles of musical instruments, transforms relatable situations from daily life into music and brings to the table fragile subjects with musical pieces like “High Pitched Voices Often Get Interrupted”, “The Privilege of Instant Authority” and “Ballad For The Frozen Eggs.” By using the power of music and humour, HU! is a friendly invitation to question our subconscious gender biases!
Let’s all be HU!
HU!
Karen van Schaik – alto saxophone, compositions
Tom Bourgeois – tenor saxophone, clarinet
Lúcia Pires – flute
Théo Lanau – drums
Fil Caporali – double bass
Recorded and mixed by Delphine Dupont, camera by Christina Nickel, video’s by Karen van Schaik.
I draw experience from my own experiences as a female jazz musician and parallel to writing music for HU! I am doing research about female jazz musicians in history (see my essay “Women Instrumentalists in Jazz” ) and gender stereotypes in general. I interviewed about 30 people of different ages, backgrounds, nationalities and gender identities and read many books and articles about gender, psychology, gender in music, sexism and women in jazz.
On the HU! Research tab you can find out more about this.
The very first Try Out/ Work-in-progress of HU! took place on October 2nd 2021.