Coal Harbour

What will the future sound like? That’s the question Coal Harbour — port city on the River Maas: you can’t get more Rotterdam than this — asks in its new project FEEDFORWARD. With no fewer than eleven musicians, the Rotterdam group assembled around pianist, composer and bandleader Robert Koemans gives a foretaste of the sound of 2100. It translates philosophical musings on social developments, technological innovations and human behaviour into a rich sound image saturated with musical colour, as we heard on its well-received debut album JOLT and will no doubt hear on the forthcoming project FEEDFORWARD. Pretentious? Ambitious at most, though nothing wrong with that. On the contrary!

You can venture in various directions with eleven musicians on board. That’s why Koemans uses all eleven. He’s the captain who points the way by mapping the route, but the band members have plenty of opportunity to make their own contribution. Musically speaking, Coal Harbour combines jazz and classical, regularly weaving in musical references and improvisations. This is timeless music to immerse yourself in, and it never tires. FEEDFORWARD is the new Coal Harbour project, created as part of the Nieuwe Makers programme of Jazz International Rotterdam.

• Merel Junge – violin
• Hadewijch Hofland – violin
• Yanna Pelser – viola
• Thomas van Geelen – cello
• Tom Ridderbeekx – trumpet
• Yoran Aarssen – clarinet & saxophone
• Federico Calcagno – bass clarinet & clarinet
• Romain Bly – horn, euphonium & trumpet
• Robert Koemans – piano & compos
• Thomas Pol – double bass
• Willem Romers – drums