When I think of new music, I never think of fun. Rather, you think of seriousness, subtlety, taste to be acquired and listening experiences that you might later find ordinary. But not yet. So this year during November Music, I did smile a lot. Not laughing out loud (an occasional one), but simply, with happiness. While there's not a whole lot of lollygagging going on in the world. What has dawned in me, or is it because of that festival?
Marieke Hopman, who will take over the role of artistic director from founder Bert Palinckx after this edition, said her mission is to break down barriers. Newly composed music is just really beautiful and fun, she stated. "You don't have to have studied it to enjoy it." She cited her experience with Streik, the work for 10 drummers by Enno Poppe, which was played on Tuesday. A work I also enjoyed with a happy grin in the main hall of Bossche Verkadefabriek.
Nothing better than 'live'
A wonderful ambition, of course, and such work deserves a much larger audience. Maastricht's Vrijthof will just not yet be packed en masse with fans of Laura Bowler, whose work 'Advert' I saw yesterday. Still, it made me intensely happy. Perhaps precisely because of the intimate setting. Because you do need a little protective bubble with music as intense, and sometimes as private, as the collection of confessions of this British actress, director, voice artist and singer.
Maybe I am too impressed by people who have a 15-thousand sound system at home with 1,500 euros worth of speaker cables per set. They want the best sound at home. What matters to them is the purity of sound, and the exactness of reproduction. So much technical and financial capital just to compensate for what they miss from live: the energy of the artists, the atmosphere in the room, the lights around you.
It's all about the vibe
I recently heard the story of someone who always took her deaf-blind sister to concerts. Even though she could barely hear and see anything, it was the 'vibe', the energy that hung in the room, along with the vibrations of the air, that made a live concert incomparably beautiful to her. That is the irreplaceable thing about any performing art. That intangible energy in a room. Even the crackling Fishermans Friend bags of the audience behind you. But especially those musicians who are building a party together, whether it's extreme concentration and serene tones, or drummers pounding against each other's rhythms.
It is about the new
Then, with new music, there is that other energy: that of the original creation. Often the composer himself is on stage. Because works are often played only a few times, each performance is a rare gem. Often a rare opportunity for the composer to hear and see live what they previously conceived on paper. This makes such a performance even more unique, and the pleasure that reigns in the audience even greater.
Then it is a shame that we in the Netherlands treat our composers so badly. At the presentation of the Buma New Composers Pitch 2024 (a €250 prize) for young composers, there was plenty of talent present. What was striking, however, was that the conservatory students nominated by their teachers came from Iran, Lithuania, Poland, Italy, Finland and Portugal. All were original, idea-rich artists, and the winner from Lithuania even convinced with her video work of inaudible music. She wrote a work for the sound you attribute in your own head to an opening cabinet door, and the surf of the North Sea.
Do it yourself
That there were no Dutch-born composers among the nominees was striking. You could blame it on the eagerness with which Dutch art schools recruit students from abroad, but according to Dutch Composer Laureate Anne-Maartje Lemereis, something else is going on: in our country, you don't learn to compose until you are at the conservatory. Music schools train their young students on the perfect technique of performing music, and often punish tinkering yourself.
Eleven-year-old Lize Bastiaens, named 'Young Composer Laureate' by Lemereis, showed what children are capable of. She had taken and been given space to develop things on her own, up to and including her own musical notation. "Every person is creative," the Composer Laureate said, "but we unlearn that creativity." She told how she herself debuted as an 11-year-old with a work of her own for the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, but then had nowhere to go with her talent.
Nobel Prize
That black hole can be closed when Dutch art education becomes more concerned with making and creating, and less concerned with performing. You might add that the same applies to language and visual arts. You don't get a Nobel Prize with an A in 'Reading comprehension'. A writing career starts with the desire to write yourself, halfway through the first book you read.
Enno Poppe, the composer of that work for 10 drummers, thus began his career as a composer. A lot of people are having fun with that now.
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