Soolmaan – Kashgul

Description

‘Kashgul’ will be released on 24 January 2025.

During the first ten years of his career, lutenist and composer Tristan Driessens mainly devoted himself to the classical music of the Ottoman court. In 2011 he founded the acclaimed Lâmekân Ensemble, which recorded four albums and gave performances in Europe, Turkey, and Central Asia. After becoming an accomplished oud player during his training in Istanbul, Tristan Driessens returned home in 2016. That’s when he founded Soolmaan, an ensemble for which he writes original compositions reflecting his multi-sided identity. Influences from Eastern and Western classical music traditions and contemporary modal music fuse into highly versatile and inspirational sounds where improvisation is the connecting factor.

In 2022, Tristan Driessens wrote a cycle of new material as part of his creative trajectory as an artist-in-residence at the Concertgebouw of Bruges. The outcome is Kashgul, a contemporary modal music album made up of powerful contrasts and flavours from India, Persia, and Greece.