* En anglais uniquement
The chamber ensemble
Het Collectief specializes in the period from the early 20th century to the experimental present. The group has performed internationally and has recorded for several labels.
Het Collectief ("
The Collective") was formed in Brussels, Belgium, in 1998. Its membership has remained consistent, comprising
Wibert Aerts (violin),
Julien Hervé (clarinet), Thomas Dieltjens (piano),
Toon Fret (flute), and
Martijn Vink (cello). This heterogeneous grouping has allowed
Het Collectief to explore classic chamber works of the 20th century, often arranging them from other media, and also to explore new works in the medium of chamber music for traditional instruments. The ensemble performs and records arrangements of music from earlier periods as well.
Het Collectief has focused on the roots of modernism in the music of the composers of the Second Viennese School:
Schoenberg,
Berg, and Webern. The group also plays a wide variety of new music, adding some 30 works to its repertory yearly, and its programs often combine 20th century and contemporary works in innovative ways. Many of its concerts at home in northwestern Europe are in small-scale venues oriented toward experimental music. The group has toured widely, appearing around western and eastern Europe, Britain, and South America (in Peru and Brazil), and in Hong Kong.
Het Collectief has won several awards, including the Klara Prize for Musician of the Year in 2011.
Het Collectief made its recording debut in 2005 with the album Bach: Ein musikalisches Opfer "Revisited" on the Fuga Libera label. The group made four more recordings for that label, also issuing a recording of
Stockhausen's 12x12 for music boxes on EtCetera in 2012. In 2014, the group joined soprano
Katrien Baerts for a recording of
lieder by Berg and Zemlinsky on the Zig Zag Territoires label. Beginning in 2011,
Het Collectief worked with composer and pianist
Reinbert de Leeuw, making a recording for the Alpha label of the latter's chamber arrangement of
Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde just weeks before
de Leeuw's death in 2020.