When the river becomes tree

When the River Becomes Tree

For more than twenty years, composer George De Decker and clarinettist Raf De Keninck have been moving through a shared landscape of sound.

A landscape in which sound is not only created, but also found. In breath. In wood and metal. In distance. In noise. In the resonance that remains after everything appears to have fallen silent.

 

Their collaboration has grown from artistic kinship, curiosity and a deep friendship. Twenty years of listening, collecting, searching and beginning again. Of sound slowly becoming music — and of silence revealing that it was never truly silent.

These trajectories converge in their new recording project, provisionally titled When the River Becomes Tree.

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A composed sonic environment enters into dialogue with live clarinets and related instruments. From the clear and fragile voice of the clarinet to the dark depths of the bass clarinet. The instruments are played as intended, but also opened up, explored and rediscovered. Breath becomes rhythm. A key becomes percussion. A tone becomes grain, shadow or trace.

The recorded soundscape emerged from years of field research undertaken together. Sounds were collected in places where nature, human presence, architecture and memory intersect: flowing water, wind, voices, machinery, resonant spaces, abandoned rooms and movements that are almost too quiet to hear.

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Not a background, but a living environment.

Not a fixed narrative, but a space in which sound can change its meaning.

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When the River Becomes Tree explores what can be heard — and what exists just beyond hearing. The space between sound and silence, presence and memory, and between two musicians who have been listening together for more than twenty years.

The recording will be released at the end of 2026 on CD and through the major digital platforms.