VI.BE

About HU!:

HU! is a Brussels based jazz sextet with 4 horns, drums and double bass (no harmonic instrument). HU! surprises with imaginative music that goes from intense grooves to free improvisation to melodic pieces with a cinematic quality. The music has a strong rhythmic component and also contains a lot of humour.

Style wise one can recognise influences of Charles Mingus, John Zorn, Carla Bley, Matana Roberts, Henry Threadgill, Ennio Morricone and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

With her project HU!, composer and saxophonist Karen van Schaik challenges today’s unconscious gender biases and the fact that there are still so few female jazz instrumentalists. (Worldwide only 5% of professional jazz instrumentalists is female, in Belgium it is 4%).

HU! plays with the traditional roles of musical instruments, transforms relatable situations from daily life into music and brings to the table (sometimes fragile) subjects with musical pieces like "Jeans With Tiny Pockets and Toothpaste for Men", "Circlusion", "High Pitched Voices Often Get Interrupted" and "Ballad For The Frozen Eggs."

By using the power of music and humour, HU! is a friendly invitation to question our unconscious gender biases!

Mathieu Jouan of Citizen Jazz magazine writes the following about HU!

“…HU! de la saxophoniste Karen van Schaik. HU!, c’est un projet qui porte un sens, une parole féministe et politique. Van Schaik a des choses à dire et elle s’entoure d’excellent·es musicien·nes pour le faire. On y retrouve entre autres le trompettiste Pierre-Antoine Savoyat. Ce programme très expressif et écrit avec un grand sens de la narration a fait sensation (et a écarté les nuages).”

Here is the article:

https://www.citizenjazz.com/BruJazzWknd-l-emergence-festive.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFT8zVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVAZnAX56wFeX64WaCfMHfpPdDKEChmW4wjBxDA9RKr87ioR-zjsWMKoPg_aem_PsEbr1xy4eOSJhZgUaAZRw

HU!

Karen van Schaik - baritone, alto and sopranino saxophone, compositions, toys

Bruno Grollet - tenor saxophone, toys

Lúcia Pires - flute, toys

Pierre-Antoine Savoyat - trumpet, flugelhorn, toys

Fil Caporali - double bass

Nico Chkifi - drums, toys

About Karen:

Karen van Schaik is a saxophonist, composer, improvisor and multidisciplinary artist.

She writes and plays music for circus, theatre and her own musical project HU! She often gets commissioned to compose and arrange. Additionally, Karen draws, paints, writes, and designs furniture and costumes.

Holder of a degree in architecture from the Technological University of Delft, Karen comes to Brussels to study jazz saxophone. In 2013 she represented the Netherlands within the European Saxophone Ensemble (ESE), a Brussels project by production house MetX, lead by saxophonist Guillaume Orti. The ESE brought together 12 saxophonists from 12 European countries and performed works of commissioned composers André Vida (DE/HU), Will Menter (UK/FR), Yoshk’o Seffer (HU/FR), Nick Roth (UK/IRL), Irene Galindo Quero (ES/DE) and Jorrit Dijkstra (US/NL), all composers working in contemporary improvised music.

As a professional musician, she settled permanently in Brussels.

After the ESE and her studies in jazz saxophone at the Conservatoire Royale de Bruxelles, the European capital remains the ideal breeding ground for Karen to develop her various artistic passions. She created and participated in various artistic projects and began practicing the circus discipline Chinese pole.

In September 2022 Karen started studying Jazz composition at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Michelino Bisceglia.

Current projects

In 2021 Karen obtained the carte blanche from production house MetX, which was the start of her project HU!, a jazz sextet which challenges gender stereotypes and seeks explanations why women are not widely represented in the field of jazz.

Karen works with the contemporary circus company Be Flat with the project “LIVING”, a multidisciplinary group that creates site specific performances. The creation of “LIVING” began in January 2023 and nowadays “LIVING performs on many circus festivals in and outside of Belgium.

Karen recently arranged two pieces for bassist Michel Hatzigeorgiou, she wrote a piece for Adelaïde Supiot’s mambo band “Araponga” and she wrote four compositions for urban musical “Keikop”, a collaboration with fellow composer Peter Spaepen and production house MetX. Keikop was performed in the Bronks theatre in Brussels in the last weekend of June 2024.

For more about her commissioned compositions: https://karenvanschaik.com/other-compositions/

Recent projects

In February 2023 Karen participated in the “Academie de Composition Jazz#2, a masterclass in jazz composition under the guidance of Stéphane Payen and Frédéric Maurin in Paris. During this masterclass she composed the piece “Friendly Anger”, which was performed by the youth orchestra of the Orchestra National de Jazz (ONJ) on February 18th at Dynamo in Paris.

In 2022-2023 Karen participated in the multidisciplinary exchange program “MusicPreneur”, an international exchange with artists from Cape Town, Göteborg, Toulouse and Brussels.

In September 2022 Karen participated in the “Circus Overseas” international exchange program, organised by Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde in Paris. She created a show with two acrobats from South Africa and a juggler/acrobat from Switzerland.

In 2021 she participated in the “Backdrop” project of circus company Be Flat.

A circus/parcours/music show with 12 acrobats and 4 musicians. at the Plein de Cirque festival in Turnhout. Karen was hired as artistic director/saxophonist for the musical side of this project and put together and lead a band with Viktor Perdieus (alto and tenor saxophone), Célestin Massot (drums and piano) and Anaïs Moffarts (double bass).