Topicality is back in the Dutch acting scene for a while, and that is quite nice. De Verleiders, once started as a one-off play about fraudulent bosses by George van Houts, is now growing into a voluminous series. On TV, we have the series De Fractie, which manages to recreate the news of the day every episode in...
Reinbert de Leeuw conducted an electrifying concert around Leoš Janáček at the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ on Thursday 12 March. The synergy between instrumentalists, singers and conductor yielded flawless performances, which were rewarded with ovational applause by the almost sold-out audience both before and after the interval. The cheers even led to an encore: a song from the popular cycle Rikadla...
We took another close look at the news surrounding the near bankruptcy of Groningen's illustrious Grand Theatre. Yesterday, it became clear that that theatre is in serious financial trouble. Problems that the municipality does not want to solve simply by an extra injection of thousands of euros. And they are right. After all, the Grand's coffers are as leaky as a...
The crisis is over. Especially if you are in the fine art business. In 2014, the global art market grew by 7% from the peak year of 2013. In total, the art trade turned over a value of 51 billion euros last year, making that market almost as big as the economy of Uzbekistan. The internationally authoritative website artnet reported that today
The Grand Theatre in Groningen is dying. Yesterday, the city council of the northern university city decided that no more money should be poured into the theatre, which is in acute cash trouble. Bills from suppliers and independent artists have not been paid for several months, and financial reserves are more than depleted. We have received reports from artists...
Will Ivo and Jan join this impressive list? Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Joan Littlewood, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Peggy Ashcroft, Harold Pinter, Peter Hall, Judi Dench, Alan Bennett, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alan Ayckbourn, Maggie Smith, Gillian Lynne and Michael Frayn. All big names of British theatre. International celebrities, all of whom have been awarded an Olivier, say the British...
Watching with your ears Is this a performance to watch or to listen to? This question may come to mind with 'Clubbing' by choreographer Keren Levi and musician Tom Parkinson. Are the dance moves the main thing or the sounds produced by the club of six women? A dancer/performer opens a suitcase and sets up a 'sounds kitchen'. [Tweet "A...
Miracles happen underground near Geneva. Or rather, those miracles happen every second around us, but underground at Geneva, they are being recorded. In 2013, they discovered God, or at least, a gate of light that betrayed the existence of the Higgs boson, the most elementary particle of elementary particles, which provides mass to everything around us. On 18...
Tree monuments make visible the unexpected and violent strike of death. Usually along public roads but sometimes in more remote places. Amersfoort-based photographer Jeroen Hansen photographed hundreds of them in recent years, resulting in the recently published photo book Signs of Life. A bunch of flowers tied to a dented crash barrier. Candles, photos or a teddy bear at a sharp...
Classical music is elitist, most conductors and orchestra members don't have a clue what they are doing and audiences have absolutely no clue. Subsidised art should be both accessible to a large audience and socially engaged. I also believe that The Joshua Tree is perhaps the best album ever. Signed, Hero Brinkman...
Minister Jet Bussemaker fully embraces the report released by the WRR on Thursday 5 March. In that report, entitled 'Revaluing Culture', the Scientific Council for Government Policy makes an appeal to see culture simply as culture again. "In doing so, the WRR distances itself, and I support it, from the instrumental approach to culture. As if culture only has something to mean...
100 Dutch plays were presented to them, the 224 Dutch heavy users of our theatre seats who took part in a survey by the Amsterdam Institute for Theatre Studies. Plays that ranged from fairly well-known, such as Herman Heijermans' 'Op Hoop van Zegen' from the beginning of the last century and Joost van den Vondel's 460-year-old tragedy 'Lucifer', to completely unknown, such as...
Use arts funding for research&development, attracting venture capital and crowdfunding with public money. In this way, according to the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the same public money can yield more. In an 'exploration' presented to the government today, this advisory board breaks a lance for more daring and commitment from the government to strengthen the Dutch cultural sector: 'Increasingly,...
Of Dutch people, the province can cut back even more on Culture. This week, Ipsos Synnovate presented a survey to that effect, and it was another slap in the face for the sector. Apparently, the image of art as an expensive kind of leftist hobby has not yet been eradicated by three years of optimistic NLPing by culture minister Jet Bussemaker's PR machine....
They are each other's opposites: Michiel Borstlap exudes luxury and relaxation, Micha Hamel a tense frown. But the two not inconsiderable gentlemen have both recently joined the Academy of Arts. They played new work last weekend and I spoke to them afterwards. Actually, I was programming Michiel Borstlap's concert for a theatre in Driebergen. In an expensive Jaguar, we drove to a restaurant for coffee...
Not every piece of art can hang on every wall. Utrecht's Galerie Kuub has one such wall, which is a challenge for anyone wishing to hang a work of art in the otherwise generous space. This is because the wall is medieval, and over the centuries has had more layers, stamps and anchors added to it than an average new-build house will be able to handle in its lifetime. With or...
Jazz musician and teacher Clark Terry died last month. Jazz journalist Jeroen de Valk looks back on a candid interview with one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. It was only on 21 February that he fell silent, Clark Terry. He was 94 and had been in the musician's business for at least 75 years. Go figure: he made his living as a trumpeter as a young teenager and...
Ron Jagers has been providing playful commentary on culture in Amersfoort and elsewhere for 45 years. His latest find is the 'Prince Bernhard Fanclub'. But the 63-year-old absurdist and multi-artist also made a gripping book about East Berlin before the fall of the wall. 'hop, two-three-four!' He walks along in the Silent Fanfare, an orchestra that marches forward with much fuss
Ralph van Raat is by far the most important solo pianist in the contemporary repertoire in our country, fellow pianist Maarten van Veen pursues an idiosyncratic course in ensemble playing in modern music. When the two musicians work together, they prove to complement each other perfectly. Under the aegis of the Doelen Ensemble, they played together with percussionists Colin Currie and Benjamin Ramirez, for whom the same...
Even before the Noord Nederlands Orkest's final chord has fully sounded out, the audience in a well-filled Theater Carré stands up as one to cheer on the cast of Bizet's Parelvissers. We are writing 24 February 2015 and this is one of the last performances of this austere but effective production by the Nationale Reisopera. Tonight, this...
In a chock-full DeLaMar theatre, deputy director Robert Guijt presented the 2014 Dance Audience Award and Dance Photo of the Year on 23 February 2015. This fitted well with the festive premiere of Crazy Blues by winner International Dance Theatre. Many acquaintances from the dance world performed at the DeLaMar. 'Hans van Manen is sitting beautifully on Princess Beatrix's chair,' joked Guijt. The same...
Clark Terry was a legend and is no more. The American jazz trumpeter died on Saturday at the age of 94. He began his musical career with jazz greats Count Basie and Duke Ellington, who soon recognised his extraordinary talent. He said of the two: "Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school." [Tweet ""Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was ...
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