Lilly Joel Plays The Organ

The Belgian duo Lilly Joel of singer and multi-instrumentalist Lynn Cassiers and electric pianist Jozef Dumoulin, otherwise known for his sound experiments with the Fender Rhodes, is coming to Cologne with an unusual organ project that will be performed on the Kuhn organ in the Romanesque basilica of St Kunibert. They will play music by the 12th century composer, abbess, mystic and poet Hildegard von Bingen, in a combination of vocals, electronics and organ, which Dumoulin already played as a child. Both have explored the improvisational possibilities of Hildegard von Bingen’s melodies, some of which are monodic. A large part of the work consisted of finding the right approach and the right tone for this arrangement; to see how these melodies sound today and what they demand, and to invent spaces in which they can unfold. The result is “Sibyl Of The Rhine”, a tribute to the great composer, a sound condensation of hypnotic beauty.