Ensemble Klang was founded in The Hague in the Netherlands in 2003. It describes itself as a "Dutch ensemble playing only the newest of new music. We've got saxes, trombone, guitars, keys, and stuff we like hitting!" The core Ensemble Klang members are pianist Saskia Lankhoorn, guitarist and artistic director Pete Harden, trombonist and business director Anton van Houten, saxophonists Erik-Jan de With and Michiel van Dijk, and percussionist Joey Marijs. The group performs widely in concert halls, at open-air festivals, and in pop music venues, and it has attracted a wide audience.
Ensemble Klang performs without a conductor, despite undertaking music of considerable virtuosity and risk. Performances often include electronics as well. The ensemble has collaborated on new music with both Dutch composers and those abroad, including Heiner Goebbels, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Hersch. Ensemble Klang, whose members describe themselves as born collaborators, has also undertaken larger projects that encompass other musicians; these include "Igor C. Silva's Follow" (a multimedia work featuring vocalist Stephanie Pan) and "Thrift Hybrids," a multimedia work for soprano soloist, video, and ensemble by Matthew Wright and Claron McFadden. "An Embroidered Forest" combined a musical work, Keir Neuringer's Litanies of Trees, with Sara Vrugt's gigantic artwork 100,000 Trees, in a performance linking Ensemble Klang with students from the Koninklijk Conservatorium, The Hague's Amare Concert Hall, Theater De Nieuwe Regentes in The Hague, and some 1,300 embroiderers. In the early 2020s, Ensemble Klang established a new group of collaborators it calls Associate Makers; some of the first group were audio/video artist Barbara Ellison, DJ/composer Oceanic (Job Oberman), and composer Maya Verlaak. In addition to albums released on its own label, Ensemble Klang was heard in 2022 with soprano Ah Young Hong on a recording of Hersch's The Script of Storms, released by New Focus Recordings. ~ James Manheim, Rovi