A good 8 meters. That's how long instrument maker Winne Clement's overtone flute is. He provided the sounds composer Rob Simonsen based his music on for the two-time Oscar winner The Whale. Close may have missed out on the coveted statue, but Belgium is clearly making itself heard in Hollywood and around the world.
From a young age, Winne Clement was fascinated by woodworking. Being creative is in his blood. That, combined with his passion for sound and music, led this self-taught musician after years to make his own quality ethnic instruments, hollow tubes with holes in them. Every winter he goes into the woods in search of mostly native wood, which he later scoops out with antique hand drills until it produces sounds and vibrations that touch your very soul.
Today, Winne has a solid reputation worldwide as an artisanal instrument maker. His most striking recent creation is the eight-meter-long and dismountable flute with a distinctive bass sound, made from PVC pipes from a do-it-yourself store in a casing of rattan. The largest playable flute in the world, whatever Guinness World Records may say about it. An assignment from filmmaker Rob Simonsen for The Whale and a successful challenge for Winne in the excellent acoustics of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary chapel on Molenaarsstraat 24 in Ghent.
To think that Winne joked 'Would the misspelling of my name as sound artist designer in the credits have been changed?' ...
