Night Watch is a pitch black, primal and deeply sad play that deals with themes of family, emancipation and authority through old age and death. A family drama in which everyone tries to break free from the role assigned to them so that they can decide for themselves what they really believe in. A dark and meditative performance. Oppressive but ultimately liberating. In which a weakening heartbeat slowly turns into an uptempo beat. A ritual journey to the end of the night, towards the first light of the new day.

Together with Asko|Schönberg, Nederlands Kamerkoor and NKK NXT, HIIIT provides the music – which is written by David Dramm and Luke Deane. Percussionist Niels Meliefste developed a characteristic Old Dutch instrumentation especially for Night Watch.

Have you ever stopped to think about what the sun sounds like?
The sun vibrates in a complex pattern of sound waves, and recordings of these vibrations remarkably resemble the resonant sound of a tamtam (a special type of gong). This intriguing concept inspired visual artist Boris Acket and HIIIT to create a spectacular fusion of image, sound, and light, in which an artificial sun slowly orbits the Earth, following the sound and body of a tamtam—originating from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie series.

Two celestial bodies representing the sun are accompanied by four automated tamtams and gongs. The metallic surfaces create a soundscape that changes depending on where you stand: by moving through the space, you encounter different frequencies. The two celestial bodies, installed at opposite ends of the space, form a beautiful interplay with the acoustics of the grand Herrenhausen Gallery. A fascinating duet of light, sound, space, and shadow.

Superball, Lollipop & Mr. Classic is a co-production of Oorkaan and HIIIT, suitable for children ages 8 and up.

During this theatrical concert you will be carried away by the power and virtuosity of beatboxing, classical percussion and drums. The three musicians in Superball, Lollipop & Mr. Classic tell a story without words, but with their own rhythm. Beatboxing, music and dance moves come together in an exciting play in which we move to the beat we all know, the beat of our own hearts. A performance where beats and unthinkable sounds are brought together in a great battle. What do we need? Ourselves and each other! Are you ready to follow your own rhythm? When our rhythms come together we are indestructible!

Michael Gordon, the musical pioneer and co-founder of the New York ensemble Bang on a Can, is known for his subtle rhythmic explorations and bold compositional inventions. His music stems from his experience in the underground rock scene of the Big Apple, combined with classical training. It’s no surprise, then, that he is obsessed with the nature of rhythm and has built his career on exploring what happens when different rhythms are layered on top of one another.

Gordon composed Timber in 2009 specifically for HIIIT, as music for the dance production Pinball & Grace by Club Guy & Roni. The concert version quickly became a modern classic in the percussion repertoire. Gordon left behind traditional instrumentation, resulting in a mesmerizing masterpiece—a meditation on sound and rhythm that pushes the physical power, endurance, and technique of percussionists to a new level; a true desert trip.

Timber consists of five continuous sections, in which the energy of swelling and fading rolls creates an almost hallucinatory effect. Through their intense interplay, the musicians seem to transform into a single body. The piece is performed on so-called simantras, instruments made of archaic hardwood, rooted in a historical Greek ecclesiastical tradition and first developed by composer Iannis Xenakis.

At the brand-new festival Het Groene Geheim in Almere, HIIIT will perform the piece outdoors in the afternoon, in celebration of the start of summer. Children under 18 get free entry to the festival, which will take place on Landgoed de Kemphaan.

What does it mean to be human in a world where other forms of intelligence also exist? Audiovisual artist and composer Zeno van den Broek poses this question at a time when artificial intelligence is evolving at lightning speed. His latest work, Ways of [ ], is more urgent than ever.

In Ways of [ ], Van den Broek brings humans and machines together in a single musical and visual experience. He composed the piece for two innovative music ensembles – HIIIT and Percussions de Strasbourg – as well as for four digital “musicians”: self-playing percussion machines that perform autonomously while also responding live to the human percussionists. To musically train these digital entities, Van den Broek fed their algorithms with rhythms from industrial history: think steam engines, looms, and other mechanical systems. In this way, the digital players learn – just like humans – from their predecessors and from their musical environment.

Ways of [ ] is an audiovisual composition that feels like the emergence of a new kind of shared intelligence. You see and hear the digital and human musicians gradually learning to understand each other: hesitant at first, then increasingly fluid. In three largely improvised sections, the players discover their own voice and eventually find a shared musical language.

With Ways of [ ], Van den Broek invites the audience to reflect on what intelligence truly is – and what it means to be human.