Yasuaki Shimizu / Catharina Evens / GAME

Yasuaki Shimizu De Japanse saxophonist, composer and producer Yasuaki Shimizu has been active in the music world for almost fifty years. His work moves effortlessly between pop, jazz, minimalism, soundtracks, and pure experiments. He has collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, and Van Dyke Parks, among others. Cult albums ‘Kakashi’ and ‘Utakata No Hibi’, masterly crosses of Japanese folk and pop elements, have found a new audience in recent years thanks to reissues on Palto Flats. Due to the refined electronic/disco production style, they sound just as fresh as in the early ‘80s. After a completely sold-out first North American tour ever in 2025, he is now in our RUISKAMER for the first time, a unique opportunity to hear and see a living legend up close. Yasuaki Shimizu is a maverick saxophonist, composer and producer whose almost 50-year career spans an impossibly broad range of genres. He is a well-known musical presence in Japan recognised for his crossover pop hits, film soundtrack work and a host of high-profile live commissions, installations and collaborations with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, Van Dyke Parks and David Cunningham. Shimizu’s music reached a wider audience in the West following the reissue on Palto Flats of his iconic 1982 solo album Kakashi and his band Mariah’s classic 1983 record Utakata No Hibi – masterful hybrids of Japanese folk and pop idioms filtered via a honed electronic/disco production aesthetic that make them sound fresher than ever today. Shimizu embarked on his first North American tour in 2025, selling out every show. Don’t miss his stop at RUISKAMER, to witness his ever-evolving artistry. Catharina Evens Catharina Evens (1997°, Brussels) is a Belgian experimental electro-acoustic pianist who seeks to explore an alternative sonic palette for the acoustic piano. She achieves this, in part, by manipulating acoustic sounds live using electronics, amplifying them and allowing them to resonate through the piano’s entire soundboard and strings. The typical piano sound, which we usually associate with the acoustic piano, fades away, making way for a unique sonic universe whose various musical possibilities she further explores through improvisation and composition. Using granular textures, playful capriciousness, compelling pianistic passages, naive phrases, percussive accents, piano preparations, rhythmic sequences and exploring the space between different musical genres, Catharina creates her own absurd world of sound, full of narrative fragments. Catharina Evens (b. 1997, Brussels) is a Belgian experimental electro-acoustic pianist who seeks to explore an alternative sonic palette for the acoustic piano. She achieves this, in part, by manipulating acoustic sounds live using electronics, amplifying them and allowing them to resonate through the piano’s entire soundboard and strings. The typical piano sound, which we usually associate with the acoustic piano, fades away, making way for a unique sonic universe whose various musical possibilities she further explores through improvisation and composition. Using granular textures, playful capriciousness, compelling pianistic passages, naive phrases, percussive accents, piano preparations, rhythmic sequences and exploring the space between different musical genres, Catharina creates her own absurd world of sound, full of narrative fragments. in collaboration with VIERNULVIER