Redemption

Erik Bosgraaf, one of the most versatile, innovative, and daring recorder virtuosos, joins forces with the Cracow Singers and composer Jorrit Tamminga to embark on a unique musical voyage exploring the idea of redemption. The artist, known for his performance mastery, creativity, and ability to cross stylistic boundaries, reaches in this undertaking for a combination of vocal Renaissance polyphony, recorder improvisation, and electronic processing.

In REDEMPTION the concepts of wrongdoing, sentencing and forgiveness are worked out musically and theatrically. Sin and guilt can be followed by rapture and a longing for a cathartic purification and redemption. Renaissance polyphony, in its architectural clarity and transparency, functions as a symbol of an immaculate divine perfection.

In Erik Bosgraaf, Jorrit Tamminga and the Cracow Singers’ interpretation, polyphony ceases to be an archeological voice of the past but becomes living tissue that pulsates and breathes. Bosgraaf confronts the music from 16th century with his improvisations opening up a limitless space of suggestion for the listener. The human voice as a primal and spiritual carrier of energy combined with Bosgraaf’s mesmerising lyricism and Tamminga’s intricate electronic sound processing create a multidimensional sonic space. The singers’ voices symbolise the language of community, silent
prayers born of guilt, attimes whispered in hope of liberation.

Erik Bosgraaf is widely regarded as one of the most visionary and boundary-crossing recorder virtuosos of our time. His artistry moves fluently between centuries: from the crystalline architectures of Renaissance and Baroque music to the open, risk-embracing spaces of contemporary creation and improvisation. In projects such as REDEMPTION, Bosgraaf approaches historical repertoire not as a museum artefact, but as living matter – music that can still pulse, fracture, and transform.

His repertoire spans from Van Eyck and Vivaldi to Boulez and newly commissioned works; he has inspired and premiered over one hundred compositions, many of them concertos written specifically for him. Whether leading from the recorder, the harpsichord, or conducting from the front, Bosgraaf brings an intense physicality and poetic focus to performance. He has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras worldwide, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and made his debut at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie with Concerto Köln.

Improvisation is central to his musical language. Through collaborations with jazz and experimental musicians such as Yuri Honing and Ernst Reijseger, Bosgraaf continuously redefines the expressive limits of his instrument. His extensive discography – over twenty recordings – reflects this restless curiosity and stylistic openness.

Alongside his international performing career, Bosgraaf is deeply committed to musical transmission. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Cracow Music Academy and Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, and regularly gives master-classes around the world. His work has been recognised with major awards including the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, the Dutch Music Prize, ECHO Rising Star, and the Golden Violin Award.

Jorrit Tamminga is a composer and sound artist whose work unfolds at the meeting point of acoustic resonance and electronic transformation. In REDEMPTION, his electronic sound world does not function as an external layer, but as an invisible architecture – breathing with the voices, amplifying fragility, tension, and release.

Tamminga composes for a wide range of instruments and ensembles, integrating live electronics in ways that remain deeply connected to physical sound and human gesture. His music theatre productions merge music, film, and electronics into immersive, multidimensional experiences, blurring the boundaries between concert, ritual, and theatrical space.

As an improvising musician, Tamminga often performs live with laptop as his instrument, most notably in close collaboration with Erik Bosgraaf. His refined sense of timing, colour, and dramaturgy allows electronic sound to respond organically to vocal polyphony and instrumental improvisation.

He is highly sought after as a specialist in live electronics, programming and shaping electronic
layers for composers, orchestras, and music theatre productions. His long-term collaboration with
composer Wim Henderickx, as well as projects with ensembles and orchestras such as the Residentie Orkest, Brussels Philharmonic, Phion, Hermes Ensemble, and ICK, reflect his central role in contemporary music practice.

Tamminga’s interdisciplinary collaborations extend beyond the concert hall, including work with singers, filmmakers, and theatre makers. At the same time, he is active ineducation as lecturer in sound design at the Utrecht University of the Arts and as head of composition at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he continues to shape new generations of composers and
sound artists.

Cracow Singers is an ensemble of professional vocalists united by a shared artistic vision: to create deeply conceptual, high quality projects in which vocal precision, expressive intensity, and interdisciplinary thinking converge. In REDEMPTION, the ensemble’s voices form the communal and spiritual core of the work – at times architectural and luminous, at others fragile, whispered, and intimate.

Renowned for its distinctive sound aesthetic and interpretative clarity, Cracow Singers approaches both early and contemporary repertoire as living expression rather than historical reconstruction. Renaissance polyphony, in their hands, becomes a breathing organism – transparent yet charged with emotional and symbolic meaning.

The ensemble develops original vocal and vocal-instrumental projects and actively collaborates with contemporary composers, giving premieres of new works while also rediscovering forgotten musical heritage. Their world premiere of the reconstructed Lamentationes by Wacław of Szamotuły stands alongside projects dedicated to living composers, including their participation in an international project on the music of Lera Auerbach initiated by Internationale Musikverlag Hans Sikorski.

Cracow Singers regularly collaborates with leading early music and contemporary ensembles as well as outstanding conductors and soloists, among them La Risonanza, Rascher Saxophone Quartet, Quatuor Bela, Fabio Bonizzoni, Zoltán Pad, and Erik Bosgraaf. Their discography includes twelve original albums, and they perform frequently at major European festivals.

The ensemble is led artistically by Karol Kusz, with Katarzyna Freiwald as creative director. Together, they shape projects in which the human voice becomes a vessel for memory, community, and transformation.