Hoketus was an amplified musical ensemble founded by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...

 in the Netherlands in 1976. The group was originally formed to perform Louis Andriessen's minimal

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

 composition Hoketus, but remained together and began to perform music composed for the group by other composers (many of whom came from within the group's ranks). The group disbanded in 1987.

The ensemble's instrumentation and overall artistic aesthetic was quite radical; it was made up of two equal groups of instruments (two pianos, two Fender Rhodes electric pianos

Rhodes piano

The Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....

, two sets of panpipes

Pan flute

The pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length...

, two saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

s, two electric bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

s, and two percussionists).

Hoketus considered itself a collective

Collective

A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...

 and set a number of rules for itself, rules so stringent that taken together they could be considered a manifesto. The group always performed with amplification set at a high volume, the two groups of instruments situating themselves as far apart as possible from one another on stage. Personal expression was not permitted; melodies could only be built through the interlocking of single notes or chords, played in alternation between the groups using the Medieval

Medieval music

Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...

 technique of hocket

Hocket

In music, hocket is the rhythmic linear technique using the alternation of notes, pitches, or chords. In medieval practice of hocket, a single melody is shared between two voices such that alternately one voice sounds while the other rests.In European music, hocket was used primarily in vocal...

 (hence the group's name). The group had an aesthetic bias toward works that were heavy, loud, dissonant, and brutal, showing influence from both hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

 and the works of Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

 (one of Andriessen's favorite composers).

Besides Andriessen, other composers who wrote for Hoketus include Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...

, Huib Emmer

Huib Emmer

Huib Emmer is a Dutch composer. He also plays electric guitar and electric bass guitar.From 1976 to 1986 Emmer was a member of the Dutch minimal ensemble Hoketus and he has performed since 1988 in the ensemble LOOS...

, Diderik Wagenaar

Diderik Wagenaar

Diderik Wagenaar is a Dutch composer and musical theorist.-Life and work:Wagenaar has lived and worked all his adult life in The Hague. Born to a musical family that includes Johan Wagenaar, he began playing piano at the age of eight and by the time he was fourteen had set his sights on a musical...

, Klas Torstensson, and Gene Carl.

An ensemble of similar instrumentation called Icebreaker

Icebreaker (band)

Icebreaker is a UK-based new music ensemble founded by James Poke and John Godfrey. The group have established themselves as one of the UK's leading new music interpreters specializing particularly in post-minimal and "totalist" repertoire. They always play amplified and have a reputation for...

 was formed in York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

in 1989, and continues to perform works from the Hoketus repertoire.