• Concoction for oboe, oboe d’ amore and cor anglais, grand piano, harpsichord, keyboard, pianistic percussion and bamboo sounds

• Duration: 13'
• = first movement of Taman Suara
• Composed in 2007
• Commissioned by PETRONAS Galeri (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
• First performance: 02.12.07
• Full score: ISBN: 979-0-9016500-2-2
• Parts: To rent the parts, please email rc@robertcasteels.com, or send a request to Orchard Post Office P.O. Box 714 Singapore 912324
• Recording: To purchase the cd, please email rc@robertcasteels.com, or send a request to Orchard Post Office P.O. Box 714 Singapore 912324
• Downloadable scores for inspection:
  taman_suara_buluh.pdf

‘Taman Suara’ comprises two pieces, ‘buluh’ and ‘pontianak’, composed by Robert Casteels in 2007 for a series of concerts entitled ‘Music, plants and food’. This interdisciplinary event explored man’s relationship with the environment, first through the performance of pieces of music inspired by food or about food, then through the creation of two new installations by Bob Verschueren, and finally, through the interaction between the audience and the ‘ambulant kitchen’ by Thorsten Baensch and Christine Dupuis.

In the Malay language, ‘Taman Suara’ means garden sound and ‘buluh’ means bamboo. In response to Verschueren’s ‘installation VII-07’ in which pieces of bamboo in harmonious shades of green were precisely cut and arranged in rows of decreasing height and spac, Casteels superimposed layers of music with actual bamboo sounds to create a verdant and lush soundscape.  One sudden and short effervescent outburst wittily subtitled ‘bamboogie’ hardly disturbs the jungle haunted by four nocturnal calls, four cantilenas played by the oboe.