Ton Oostveen

Musical Kites : Sounds From The Clouds

Performance und Video

Seit Jahrhunderte werden Drachen mit Instrumente bestückt und als singende Stimmen in die Lüfte erhoben, damit sie mit dem "Irrationalen" oder "Erhabenen" in Berührung kommen. Nicht nur die physischen Röhren und Pfeifen, Glocken und Saiten erzeugen diese Geräusche, sondern auch die Vibrationen im Seil, mit dem die Drachen gezogen und losgelassen werden, spielen dabei eine Rolle. Kaspar König und Ton Oostveen experimentieren mit Möglichkeiten, Sounds von windgetriebenen Instrumenten zu entwickeln die mittels moderneTechnologie & Materialien schlussendlich zu einem hochkarätigen Klangspiel zusammen kommen. Dies kann zu einer einzigartigen Komposition führen und einer langen und alten Tradition eine neue, luftige Note verleihen. Eine Gruppe von 5 bis 6 Drachensteigern bringt die 5-6 Fliegende Instrumenten in die Luft. Kaspar König verwirklicht mit den Klängen der Drachen und die fliegende Instrumente von Ton Oostveen seine Partitur. Dabei werden beide unterstützt von Harold van Ingen mit seiner dafür entwickelte Elektronik."

The festival’s statement of moving winds and the theme clouds provokes the imagination of flying objects in the space between earth and clouds. It is the essential wish of many people to fly, to be up in cloud 7. To hold a flying object like a bird kite on a wire can provide the feeling to be up in the clouds.

Traditionally Asian kites and specifically musical kites where practiced in the season to pray for good rice harvest and to hunt bad spirits. Musical kites where also used in communicating over distances. 

In Asian tradition the sound of the wind is transformed by several instruments in the kites.

With a multidisciplinary team we are developing ultra light musical instruments driven by the wind. Not for a Wind Music Garden on the beach/ground but for producing multiple sounds from six different kites inspired by the Asian musical kites.

We design and make our own ultra light instruments from mostly recycled materials. What we add is micro-electronics to amplify the sounds of the wind coming from above from the kites.  By several systems we can influence the musical output and combination of sounds using Blue Tooth, GPS and WIFI. Providing thus the opportunity to compose a musical sound-scape out of the the social cloud of 6 different sound producing kites. 

We are having a try-out during the International Kite Festival in Berck sur Mer 19-22 april 2018.

In your Festival Bewegter Wind our performance with six kites going aloft with different musical instruments may create a special connection between the audience/spectators and the symbols in the clouds of the dream to fly. This could probably be programmed as an opening seance. The video of the performance could be part in the exhibition. 

The multidisciplinary team of the project Musical Kites:

Prof. Florian Dombois, department of Transdisciplinarity Zurich University of the Arts

interim Prof. Kaspar Koenig, University of Mainz, Master of Music and Scientific Co-Worker to Prof Florian Dombois 

Harold van Ingen, Engineer in Micro-Electronics and Internet, Maastricht, the Netherlands

Ton Oostveen, Designer of Kites, Pres. of the Dutch Kite Society, Maastricht, the Netherlands

If you need any further information you can contact us by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.