Ward Deketelaere

Eric Sleichim’s contemporary music ensemble BL!NDMAN is not just another saxophone quartet, but the name of a lab that houses a continual working process since 1988. In 1988 Eric Sleichim founded BL!NDMAN, a saxophone quartet with a traditional line-up, which develops new performance techniques and substantially expands the repertoire for the instrument by continually exploring the boundaries with other disciplines and early music.

In 2008 BL!NDMAN became a collective in which the 20 years of stage experience accumulated by the original quartet – BL!NDMAN [sax] – is shared with three young quartets: BL!NDMAN [drums], BL!NDMAN [vox] and BL!NDMAN [strings]. In 2014 the vocal quartet was replaced by BL!NDMAN [hybrid], a mixed quartet. A collective composed entirely of quartets: unique in the music world.

Four quartets, countless possibilities for ’unheard of’ cross-fertilisation. A highly individual repertoire of old and new. As always, BL!NDMAN embraces other artistic disciplines, delights the eye, questions the ear and considers experiment of paramount importance.