f26 Ambitious Pursuits
Fast making a name for themselves outside of Belgium, Trio Dhoore are finding new things to do with an accordeon, a guitar and a hurdy gurdy. Tim Chipping welcomes the neighbours. Judith Burrows took the photos.
A
n old drama teacher of mine once gave a lecture in which he claimed you could have all the talent in the world, but it would come to nothing if you didn’t
have ambition. Without ambition, he said, a person won’t do all the things that are needed in order for that talent to flourish.
Ambition isn’t a word one encounters often in our musical world. It appears at odds with the communal, participatory nature of folk music. So instead we secretly seethe when someone in our field does bet- ter than expected. We hate it when our friends become successful because jealousy is internalised ambition.
As we wind through the City of London to the interview location, Trio Dhoore are laughing about the reactions some of their fellow Belgian musicians will have to them being featured on the cover of this maga- zine. They expect far fewer Facebook ‘likes’ than they’d get for posting a picture of their dinner. But the brothers Dhoore deserve the break-out success they’ve achieved over the last year. They deserve it for their abilities as exceptional musicians, arrangers and tune writers, but they got here thanks to their drive.
“2016 was the year of investing,” Hartwin Dhoore tells me, in the café at Tate Modern. “All the time looking for new money to do this one extra thing. But it’s kind of rock ’n’ roll as well! You feel that a lot is changing, so I really like it. But I’m so tired. In January I’ll have the first two weeks where I don’t play any concert or answer any email. From March we spent every day thinking about music and working on it. But every day I think about the fact there are people who would want to swap with my life and have something happening around their music, so I’m really thankful for it. The fact you have a lot of work as a musician is only good!”
One result of all that work was the group becoming that year’s word-of-mouth hit at Sidmouth FolkWeek. Their intricate, melodic and elevating dance tunes played on diatonic accordeon, guitar and hurdy-gurdy sounded both fresh and familiar to the sea- soned festival crowd. Trio Dhoore have found a new way to make the music we like. But being so far from home takes its toll.
“I think for all of us it has put pressure on our relationships. We have been away a lot, and without any financial compensa-
tion. And our partners are also providing some money so it can be kind of tricky. Watching it from a distance it must be hard to see why we’re doing it but they’re really supportive. All our girlfriends came with us to our launch concert and sold the CDs.”
Trio Dhoore’s online biography is per- haps the shortest I’ve ever read – seven sen- tences that tell the reader nothing about the Flemish group’s origins or fondness for matching shirts. So let’s go back to the birth. Were they playing instruments before they could walk?
“Our parents have never been like most parents in Belgium,” explains Hartwin the accordeon player and chief tune writer. “They’re not very interested in sport, like football or basketball or something. They liked folk music and they took us to folk fes- tivals once or twice a year. And then you see the instruments and I guess as a child you say you want to make music and your par- ents say, ‘Do you think you’d like to play an instrument?’ and you’re like ‘Yes, of course!’ Then, once you get older you start to ask yourself if you like it and you make your own decisions. So I think we can say our parents supported us in trying to play together.”
So music was what the three of you did while your friends were kicking a ball around?
“Exactly, yeah,” says guitarist Ward. “But then you get to an age where you’re ashamed to tell people that you’re collabo- rating with your family playing together. But at a certain moment we just thought, ‘Yeah, let’s have a band.’”
“When I went to secondary school I
didn’t want to tell any of my friends that I play accordeon,” admits Hartwin. “But when I was fourteen or fifteen years old we saw the first band of our age, playing a sup- port for a famous folk band. And they were the first young folk band we’d seen playing with percussion and bass guitar – very mod- ern influences. They were part of the revival of folk music. That band was Aedo.”
“And so we started playing with a drummer and a bass player from school,” Ward continues. “It took different shapes, the band. But we were very ambitious.”
“In my head I was already where I am
now,” says Hartwin. “I was already thinking about touring and becoming famous. And not, ‘I want a band so I can escape from my parents and play in a youth club and drink as much as I like.’ No. I saw other bands
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
