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THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC
A meditation on disappearance — Gavin Bryars by HERMESensemble
2026
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Inspired by the story of the musicians who continued playing as the Titanic sank, Gavin Bryars' iconic composition becomes the starting point for an immersive visual and sonic journey. At the heart of this concert creation, a monumental iceberg slowly transforms into a projection surface, revealing images filmed in ocean and ice. As music and images gradually sink into abstraction, the iceberg itself begins to disappear.
Festival note
The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars is one of the most iconic works to come out of European minimalism. In a trip of just over an hour, the composer evokes the tragic sinking of the luxury liner and the musicians on board, who played on undeterred. The audience is sucked into the depths, along with the ship. But this is no menacing briny deep; rather, it’s a blissful infinity in which you can completely lose yourself.
The HERMESensemble musicians are working directly with the composer to create their new version of this masterpiece, and our in-house artist Lise Bruyneel will supply a surplus of scenery. Images inspired by water and ice are projected on an imposing set, a twelve-metre-wide iceberg, throughout the performance. The reflections on a mirrored floor also contribute to a pervading sense of spaciousness.
Festival 20.21 Leuven
An iceberg as a temporary architecture
Behind the musicians stands a monumental iceberg, occupying the stage like a temporary architecture. Both threatening and breathtakingly beautiful, it becomes an almost living presence. It cracks, groans and rumbles, its sounds resonating with the music. Gradually, its surface turns into a projection screen, opening up a new visual landscape.
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What does the story of the Titanic tell us today?
Why are we still so fascinated by this tragedy when everyone knows how it ends? What, in fact, is this shipwreck really about? We were living in a world of progress, fascinated by luxury and extreme wealth. But what really interested me were those musicians who knew they were going to die and who, despite everything, kept playing until the very end.
These days, we can’t talk about icebergs and ice without thinking about climate change. I wanted us to reflect, in a rather subtle way, on what is happening to us, on the oceans, and on what is embodied in the image of the iceberg. The iceberg is a symbol of threat—and today, it is itself threatened with extinction. I wanted to create a visual installation that conveys this feeling without words.
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Xavier Flament, L'Echo
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The Sinking of the Titanic
Music by Gavin Bryars
A creation with HERMESensemble
Video, scenography and live video performance: Lise Bruyneel
Co-scenographer and video technique: Wim Piqueur
Creation at Festival 20.21 Leuven, 30.09.26
PBA Charleroi, 10.10.26
2026
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Stills from my screen during live performances,
from icy white until darkness.
The video images were filmed in the Atlantic Ocean, both above and beneath the water, in weather conditions close to those surrounding the Titanic's sinking. Immersed in cold water, with my camera, I explored the ocean as a physical and visual material. The resulting images become part of the iceberg itself, gradually transforming its solid, recognisable forms into shifting and elusive landscapes.
As the music slowly unfolds and sinks into the depths, the visual world undergoes a similar transformation. The images lose their contours, fragment and dissolve. What initially appears as a concrete landscape gradually becomes an abstract, almost immaterial space.
PRESS
