HU!

HU! is Karen's personal musical project. She got the “carte blanche 2021” with production house MetX to start up this project and HU! recently got selected for the Brussels Jazz Alert.

HU! is a jazz project that challenges todays’ gender stereotypes and the fact that there are still so few female jazz instrumentalists (about 5% of jazz instrumentalists are female). HU! plays with the traditional roles of musical instruments, transforms relatable situations from daily life into music and brings to the table 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!

Let’s all be HU!

HU!

Research

Karen draws inspiration from her own experiences as a female jazz musician and parallel to writing music for HU! she is doing research about female jazz musicians in history (see her essay “Women Instrumentalists in Jazz” ) and gender stereotypes in general. She interviewed 28 people of different ages, backgrounds, nationalities and gender identities and read many books and articles about gender, psychology, gender in music, sexism and women in jazz. This resulted in het presentation about “12 mechanisms that still form obstacles for women to pursue a career in music”.

Karen's goal with this presentation is to create more awareness and understanding, to help musicians who suffer from these mechanisms to recognise them and others to be able to speak up when these mechanisms happen. The presentation leads to a very inclusive open discussion about possible solutions. With reaching especially musicians, programmers, music educators and parents of future musicians, Karen hopes to be part of the change that she would love to see on jazz stages. It has been scientifically proven that mixed teams function the best and that people feel happier, so we all have something to win when the jazz scene and music becomes more inclusive!

(Feel free to contact Karen about this presentation! It takes about 1h15 and gives a lot of insights to programmers, (female) musicians, (parents of) future musicians, music teachers and anyone else interested in the subject).

Musical concept & style

Karen translated these mechanisms she found with her research into musical ideas and musical concepts. The titles of the songs reveal the content of the music. Who would like to know more can ask and maybe recognise things in the music. Who isn’t interested in the subject, can ignore the titles and just enjoy the music.

HU! is a sextet with four horns (flute, trumpet, and two saxophones), drums and double bass. The diverse voices of the horns, that resemble the human voice, give a lot of possibilities to express emotions, humoristic situations and to “tell stories”. The double bass adds a lot of colours, especially with bowed passages, harmonics and driving bass lines. The drums adds a pallet that goes from gentle colouring to an aggressive energy and rhythmic complexity.

Style wise Karen draws a lot of inspiration from composers like Charles Mingus, John Zorn, Carla Bley, Matana Roberts, Henry Threadgill, Ennio Morricone and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.