Collection and heritage
With a collection of thousands of music scores, sound recordings, books and journals, MATRIX houses one of Europe’s most important documentation centres on new music. Flemish music is at the core of our collection, but the international context is equally important. This collection, which contains a lot of unpublished materials, is an indispensable resource for projects on musical heritage.
On a daily basis, we are on the outlook for interesting compositions and composers to enhance our collection. Do you know about a hidden gem? Are you a composer wanting to offer your music? Don't hesitate to get in touch!
Tomorrow, today will be yesterday
Tomorrows heritage is made today. Following that observation, MATRIX tries to build expertise and raise awareness regarding contemporary musical heritage. Our library comprises numerous scores and recordings of pieces by Flemish composers that are not commercially available, and places them at the disposition of the broad public. However, MATRIX is not an archive. Through all sorts of projects we do try to stimulate a pro-active take on contemporary musical heritage, with both careful conservation and qualitative validation.
Some of our projects on contemporary musical heritage …
The Transit Collection
In 2014-16 MATRIX developed The Transit Collection. This website is a result of New Music in Leuven, a two-phased project on the artistic archive of TRANSIT New Music Festival (a part of Festival 20/21).
Sketch of a portfolio model for ‘unreadable’ scores
Some compositions resist fixation by means of a traditional music score for reasons that may be as diverse as they are fundamental. In some scores, essential information is missing which can only be reconstructed by the composer or by the musicians that were involved in (first) performances. Other works make use of obsolete or rare technology. A lot of composers have been inventing their own instruments, playing techniques or systems of musical notation.
For all these reasons, in 2011-13, MATRIX researched some of these cases, with the aim to investigate how we can best preserve and disclose such compositions. We collaborated closely with the composers, expertise centres and heritage organisations such as Packed vzw and Resonant. The outcome of this research project can be found here.
Focus on Flemish contemporary musical heritage
Only a minor share of the music written by Flemish composers today is published in the form of commercial scores. Even fewer reach the circuit of commercial recordings. For this reason, MATRIX chooses to collect and preserve copies of such unpublished compositions. In 2004-2011, hundreds of scores and recordings were obtained. A seven-part book series was published entitled ‘Contemporary Music in Flanders’, in which the Flemish music production since 1950 was outlined and researched. More information about this series, and how to order the publications can be found here.
