De Klare Lijn (La Línea Clara)

In the summer of 2019 I was approached by Ivan Meylemans, among  other things former solo trombone at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor worldwide with both symphonic and wind orchestras, in his capacity as conductor of Royal Fanfare Kempenbloei in Achel, Belgium. He asked me if I would be interested in writing a substantial 15 minute piece for this orchestra, thus continuing a yearly tradition of Kempenbloei and 8 other affiliate orchestras in the Kempen region of East-Flanders.

I accepted the idea with pleasure and also told him that I wanted to write a piece that would connect to Belgian cultural heritage in one way or another, and finally decided to write a suite on characters from Tintin, the world famous comics from Belgium. In dutch the name of the protagonist is ‘Kuifje’ and that explains the subtitle of this suite “Kuifje in Achel” whereas the title “De Klare Lijn” (the Clear Line) refers to the style of drawing of Hergé, author of the Tintin characters and albums. The term Klare Lijn to describe the work of Hergé comes from Joost Swarte, a famous dutch comics author.

In the suite 6 characters are musically depicted, the Promenade is the musical signature of Tintin himself and the other 5 are clearly mentioned and need no further introduction…. The score is quite demanding but the Royal Fanfare Kempenbloei is undoubtedly one of the best orchestras in its genre in the world and Ivan is a great and charismatic musician!