“All things flow, nothing abides. You cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are continually flowing on. Nothing is permanent except change.”
Heraclitus
The RIVER brings songs of wonderings and human rights, poems of wanderings and love, and adventurous music, flowing and creating in the moment we are together.
The RIVER is a band i put together because i wished to share my songs in a particular musical and poetic context, played by musicians and a poet i have listened to and admired for many years. It combines three of my great loves: folk songs, improvised music and poetry.
We make no set list, but unexpected pieces, songs, poems, flow into each other in the moment of the concert. Who plays what, complements, breaks in, initiates change, rises out of the moment we are playing.
In 2006 we started with a concert in the Amsterdam Literary Festival. Since then The RIVER has been playing as a full band and at times in smaller formations or with guest musicians. The RIVER plays THE SWIM SESSIONS was a mini series in three Amsterdam venues, De Roode Bioscoop, Plantage Dok and Bimhuis. These concerts were supported by the AFK. In December 2015 the first album The SWIM SESSIONS was released on Sibyl Sings. It was recorded live during a concert at the Bimhuis. In 2024 we played at the last edition of the Zomer Jazz Fietstour in Maarhuizen, Groningen, NL.
The RIVER is:
- Lily Kiara (guitar, vocals)
- Joost Buis (trombone, lap steel guitar)
- Michael Moore (alto and bass clarinets)
- Felicity Provan (trumpet, vocals)
- Michael Vatcher (drums, percussion)
- Julyen Hamilton (poetry)
- Paul Pallesen (electric guitar)
you do not have to be a fire
for
every mountain blocking you
you could be a water
and
soft river your way to freedom
too.
– options
nayyirah waheed, in salt
“The RIVER is exceptional. Because of the combination of music genres that mingle and at the same time also don’t mingle, but mostly very harmoniously live besides each other so it feels as if they mingle.” (translation from Dutch) – Peter Bruyn in frnkfrt.net
“Folk and contemporary improvisation are … drawn together in an unconventional way that always breaks expectations. Songs bubble up from the improvisation or vice versa; each time the river meanders in new directions making ‘The Swim Sessions’ as a whole as elusive as it is enchanting”. (translation from Dutch) – Erno Elsinga, jazzenzo.nl
