| Jazz |
Summary: “Open Space” is a European theatrical project by clarinetist Fie Schouten, blending music, literature, and performance. Inspired by Georges Perec’s Espèces d’espaces, it transforms clarinet, words, and voice into a poetic exploration of space, rhythm, and perception.
Open Space: When Music and Words Collide
A theatrical form, playful with words yet profoundly European in scope: this is Open Space, a daring contemporary project that challenges how we hear, see, and inhabit space. Dutch clarinetist Fie Schouten, who first fell under the clarinet’s spell at 15, leads this sonic exploration. She commands the full spectrum of clarinets, but favors the bass clarinet, and it’s easy to understand why. Here, the instrument is no longer accompaniment; it becomes a character. The actor, in turn, is rendered almost as pure sound, validating and binding a creation made of words, tones, and pauses. This is not a performance for every ear; it is intellectually demanding, introspective, and richly layered.
Schouten explains: “With Open Space, I want to convey, in a way that is both gentle and quietly militant, my wish that people show generosity toward space, and grant it to one another. My language is music; it is through music that I address others.” She continues: “I have read the book in several languages; each one gives the work a different character, and it is fascinating to reflect that diversity within the music.” In essence, the project is a meditation on perception, rhythm, and generosity, both spatial and emotional.
The text at the heart of the work is Georges Perec’s Espèces d’espaces (1974), a literary exploration of space that moves from the intimate to the cosmic. French actor Pierre Baux brings Perec’s words to life with exquisite precision, turning language itself into music. Perec, who had a lifelong fascination with sound, even composed Conzertstück für Sprecher und Orchester (Concerto for Speaker and Orchestra) in 1974, underscoring the porous boundary between his literary and musical worlds.
Perec’s chapters move through progressively larger spheres of life: bed to bedroom, apartment to building, street to city, nation to world, and ultimately, the universe. “Perec observes with extraordinary minutiae,” Schouten notes. “We glimpse his way of seeing the world, and, at the same time, he invites us to reflect on how we might observe it ourselves.” Yet this work is about more than observation. The rhythm of Perec’s words carries its own pulse, informing interpretation. The musical creation, poised between written composition and improvisation, comes alive only through attentive listening. The ensemble acts as a vehicle carrying the author’s words, while the actor’s voice functions as an instrument, revealing the inherent musicality of speech.
In the movement titled “The Street,” Schouten’s precision is nearly surgical. She captures the chaotic pulse of urban life, reinforced by percussion: the street trembles, hums, and surges. The effect recalls the raw poetic intensity of Léo Ferré, whose lyrics, vivid, anarchic, and sharply observant, resonate here. Consider this excerpt:
«Ô ce parfum diapré dans la nuit des cigales
Dans une discothèque on a mis des barreaux
Les fenêtres s’en vont de la gorge et du squale
Ça sent la perfection dans ces rues amputées
Saint-Denis c’est un saint au derrière doublé
La fièvre est descendue ce soir dans un bordel
Et fallait voir comment ça soufflait dans la cale
Il y a partout des cons bordés d’oiseaux»
Here, the magic of words and music converges: Perec’s structural precision meets Ferré’s anarchic lyricism, creating a liminal space where literary and musical worlds merge seamlessly. The work is at times austere, occasionally elusive, but quietly mesmerizing.
The final movement, “The End”, expands from the intimate to the universal. Words and clarinet intertwine as the curtain prepares to fall. The audience is suspended in the echoes of Schouten’s bass clarinet, a reminder that beauty emerges from simplicity, never simplification. All the artists involved grasp this principle, rendering it with clarity and devotion. When music becomes poetry, it does not whisper but cries: Perec, Europe, the world, the universe, The End.
Open Space is more than a performance; it is an invitation to reconsider how we inhabit space, listen to sound, and engage with words. For those willing to meet its intellectual rigor with curiosity and generosity, the experience is transformative, poetic, and unforgettable.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, April 2nd 2026
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Musicians:
Fie Schouten (NL) – clarinets
Vincent Courtois (FR) – cello
Sofia Borges (PT) – drums
Pierre Baux (FR) – spoken word
Track Listing:
01 SPACE [3:50]
02 the bed & the room [6:30]
03 the appartment – moving in [3:43]
04 the appartment – walls [4:04]
05 the street [2:07]
06 a letter [4:04]
07 the neighbourhood [2:44]
08 the city [5:15]
09 the country – borders [4:19]
10 UNIVERSE [3:04]
All compositions by Fie Schouten, Vincent Courtois, Sofia Borges, Pierre Baux
Excerpts from Espèces d’espaces by Georges Perec spoken by Pierre Baux
Recording, mix, master by Arjan van Asselt, BIMHUIS, Amsterdam July 1, 2025