Photo of Nico: Lien Nullens, photo of Fil: Olivier Lestoquoit, photo of Lúcia: Christina Nickel, photo of Karen: Greetje Van Buggenhout, photo of Pierre-Antoine: Michel Sadowski, photo of Bruno: Roger Van Tilt, photo collage by Karen van Schaik

HU! is my personal musical project I am currently writing for. I got the “carte blanche 2021” with production house MetX to start up this project.

Karen van Schaik – baritone, alto and sopranino saxophone, compositions
Pierre-Antoine Savoyat – trumpet, flugelhorn
Bruno Grollet – tenor saxophone
Lúcia Pires – flute
Nico Chkifi – drums
Fil Caporali – double bass

Recorded and mixed by Delphine Dupont, camera by Christina Nickel, video’s by Karen van Schaik.

Newest Compositions

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 “Jeans with Tiny Pockets and Toothpaste for Men”, “Circlusion”, “High Pitched Voices Often Get Interrupted” and “Ballad For The Frozen Eggs.”

By using the power of music and humour, HU! is a friendly invitation to question our unconscious gender biases!

Let’s all be HU!

HU! 

 

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, next concert was on June 4th 2023 in café Roskam in Brussels. New dates are coming up!