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'You can't become a successful cultural entrepreneur if you don't understand how a symphony orchestra works'

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 20: Producer Joop Van De...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The opening images are apt: Joop van den Ende among men in togas, behind a real Pedel (the man with the bells), apathetic. And rightly so, of course. Because the once head man of culturally-entrepreneurial Holland, who started out in a party supplies shop, achieved academic status without ever studying.

For the man who always felt somewhat disadvantaged by the cultural and intellectual elite of the Netherlands, who in turn always joked a little about his origins, the Mandeville Lecture perhaps more important than the opening of the Delamartheatre in late 2010.

Now that the Netherlands is groaning under a regime that has made the lack of respect for and knowledge about what is good and clean in the world a standing policy, the status of producer and patron is rising fast. Which is why he gets to pat himself on the back for an hour and a half. In the process, he also ends up breaking a lance for cultural entrepreneurship in Dutch. Something about vision and passion for art. The video lasts over 70 minutes and the editing is not flashy, but don't let that put you off. The man has quite a bit to say.

At least, if you flit through the autobiographical rime and really start listening from minute 40 onwards.

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