20:30—22:30
Join us for Billy Bultheel’s captivating performance “The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation,” which marks the beginning of the Time Crystals performance program—a year-long international initiative curated by Suzanne Wallinga in collaboration with Peter van den Hoogen. Through a curated series of performances, the artists in the Time Crystals program highlight various aspects of sovereignty and focus on subjectivity and freedom of choice, the boundaries of the self, and the constant development of individual identity within spiritual, social, and political frameworks.
A composer working at the intersection of music, performance, and installation, Bultheel’s compositions traverse diverse genres, melding new music, noise, electronics, and metal with influences from Medieval and Renaissance polyphonic traditions. Exploring architectural space as a musical instrument, “The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation” is written for nine musicians, blending live and electronic music with a site-specific performance and scenography within the Brutalist architecture of the Thomas church.
Bultheel’s “The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation” takes its name from the semi-fictional autobiography of Jean Genet, the French novelist, playwright, poet, and activist. In this work, Genet deploys religious and Christian language to poetically depict the lives of societal outcasts, including convicts, thieves, and beggars. Paying homage to the writer’s contrasts of high and low culture, the musical language of “The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation” fuses the religious with the cathartic, the sacral with the industrial, and the communal with the ritualistic. The scenographic framework, too, invites musicians and the audience to navigate a dynamic experience in which music becomes spatial, tangible, and visual—an extraordinary exploration where sound intersects with architecture and movement.
With “The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation,” Bultheel continues his collaborations with scenographer and architect Andrea Belosi and curator Marie-Therese Bruglacher, with whom he pursues ongoing research into spatial and social choreographies.
“The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Declaration” is performed by Blaise Cardon Mienville (saxhorn), Alexander Iezzi (percussion), Steve Katona (countertenor), Rebecca Lane (flute), Fanny Meteier (tuba), Sara Neidorf (percussion), Thomas Pfaffinger (tuba), Amélie Ratle (euphonium), Adam Sinclaire (flute).
“The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation” is co-curated by Marie-Therese Bruglacher and Suzanne Wallinga, in conversation with Peter van den Hoogen. Scenography by Andrea Belosi. “The Thief’s Journal: Songs of Decreation” is co-produced by Surreal Projects and de Brakke Grond, the Flemish Art Centre in Amsterdam, with support from the Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam Art Fund, and Flanders State of the Art.
Biography Billy Bultheel
Billy John Bultheel (born in Brussels, 1987, lives and works between Berlin and Brussels) works as an experimental composer and performance artist bridging contemporary composition with techniques and traditions of European Medieval and Renaissance polyphonic music. His music explores performance and installations, often site-specific, leaving the constraints of the concert hall behind to find new territory for musical experiences. Musicians become performers, moving through sound tropes, interacting with architecture, sculpture, and custom-made instruments.
Among his works are “The Thief’s Journal” for Atonal (Berlin 2023), “Workers in Song” in collaboration with the artist James Richards at Wiels (Brussels 2023), “Mt. Analogue” at Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection (Paris, 2023), “Athens Songs I-IV” at the 7th Athens Biennial (Athens 2021), “UNTER” in collaboration with Tanya Viviana Abelson for the Schinkel Pavilion (Berlin 2021), “Songs for the Contract” (folia.app 2021), “The Minutes of Olomouc” at PAF (Olomouc, CZ 2020), and “When Doves Cry” at the Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin, 2019).
In 2020, Bultheel formed the band 33 with Alexander Iezzi. The duo released their first album “33-69” on the London/Berlin-based record label C.A.N.V.A.S. in September 2021. The band is modular in nature and has included appearances by musicians Ivan Cheng, Patrick Belaga, NAKED, Steve Katona, CEM, among others. They have toured across Europe and are currently working on a second studio release.
In 2012, he started his collaboration with the German performance artist Anne Imhof, working as a performer and composer in Imhof’s early performances, movies, and installations. He composed music for Imhof’s exhibition-as-opera “Angst” (2016), “Faust” (2017), and “Sex” (2019) alongside Eliza Douglas and Anne Imhof. The music for “Faust” and “Sex” have been released on LP on the German record label, PAN.
Furthermore, Bultheel has composed music for choreographers Adam Linder, Enad Marouf, Michele Rizzo, and for the Satire IXNEYTAI/TRACKERS by Sophocles, directed by Michail Marmarinos, which was presented at the ancient amphitheatre of Epidavros, Greece.
Bultheel studied composition at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague, Holland, and performance and choreography at the Institute for Applied Theatre Science, Gießen, Germany.
