Stories about jazz are more often about dead heroes than about the future. If they do reflect on jazz's prospects, they are usually bleak. The genre has been declared dead more than once, and if jazz is not dead, it has at least moved or smells funny. British essayist Geoff Dyer published a decade...
Five years. You have to get through it. Not everyone is always charmed by the petite girl diction of Roos Rebergen (Roosbeef). But what a throat. And what a presence. So it is more than ok that Roos Rebergen did something daring at David Bowie's career anniversary party: perform a translation of Five Years, the opening track of David Bowie's classic album...
Starting with the most recent issue. And then chronologically go back in time to somewhere deep in the 1960s. And then titling it 'Nothing has changed'. Brilliant move by David Bowie. All biographers can immediately throw their work in the bin. After all, anyone who grew up with David Bowie's music chronologically could not help but be continually bewildered...
Vice we all already know. It is the terror of any medium, online or otherwise, that focuses on youth culture, because with a global network and hefty US dollars, there is no getting around it. Live Nation we already know too. If you attend concerts at least once in a while, chances are good that...
We reported earlier. Worldwide, the Netherlands is Crazy when it comes to protecting the creators of books, films, journalism, art, theatre, dance and so on. And no, IT IS NOT ABOUT SUBSIDY NOW. It is about an archaic legislation that does protect the middlemen but leaves the creators outlawed and disenfranchised. That middlemen are paid extremely well, have...
The Holland Festival got a completely unknown new director in the person of Britain's Ruth Mackenzie. At least, to us. The flamboyant, artistically exceptional opera director Pierre Audi makes way for a woman who has presented herself mainly as a manager of festivals and cultural institutions, but whose ideas are anyone's guess. When she was presented, none of the...
Should the free market be curbed to save Dutch culture? The issue facing the Dutch government is quite a big one. On Tuesday, Dutch 'makers' (artists, photographers, actors, screenwriters, translators, directors, freelance journalists, etc.) presented a pamphlet. The pamphlet outlines the idiotic situation the Dutch cultural and creative sector is in. No other country disregards...
" Dear friends of Free Knowledge," With these words the president of Wikimedia Netherlands, Frans Grijzenhout concludes his welcome speech of the Wikipedia conference. In a conference venue at Hoog-Catharijne, I am surrounded by some 120 ' Wikipedians', as they call themselves. As in any subculture, it is clear to see who belongs to the regular incrowd. Wikipedians look like...
For fine art, you go to the museum, especially in Amsterdam and especially now that all the museums have reopened. But there is also another option: the opera. There you see visual art that doesn't fit in any museum, not even in the largest room of the Rijksmuseum. Take the Greek sculptor Jannis Kounellis. From today, his work is a...
We usually don't think about it, but marketing is all around us. And that while we can learn a lot from all those good examples. And certainly also from the not so good ones. Recently, I saw on TV an interview with the world star Stromae. This young Belgian rapper and musician has been very successful in recent years. Whether you...
So it really does exist. A high road through the mountains of Romania. Completed in 1974. Viewed by my father in the same year, while his 'guide' told him not to walk too close to the edge, because he would not be the first to crash over the edge. After which his 'guide', the secret agent that every western journalist...
Update: text amended after tips from our observant reader Sebastiaan Smits. The Danish National Chamber Orchestra is quitting as of 31 December. Economised away. But not because of this video, then, Sebastiaan Smits managed to report. @culturepress Is not a protest, but a promotion for chilli. http://t.co/GfsyPJUF2k- Sebastiaan Smits (@sebastiaansmits) November 7, 2014 @sebastiaansmits Thanks for the addition then. We will correct it. To be sure:...
It is a little after ten o'clock. I'm on my way to the bakery on Rotterdam's Nieuwe Binnenweg. I pass a coffee shop, a bicycle shop, an off-licence. I also pass the hairdresser's where about 12 men are waiting in front of the door. An hour before the doors open. "Yes but wait... A hairdresser that doesn't open until 11 o'clock...
First story. A naked king crawls at the feet of a woman. She is much taller than him, a goddess. High above him, she holds a bunch of grapes in her hand. Hungry he is! He wants those grapes, all of them. His body is vulnerable. It seems to shiver in the open air. But when it comes to the coveted food, he fetches...
You could wait for it. Meppelgate. Marieke Heebink, top actress with Toneelgroep Amsterdam, had the audacity to say in the newspaper that she is happy to be in a sold-out 'Angels in America' in New York. "Thank God I don't have to go to Meppel" she says. Aj. Aj. How dare she! That is guaranteed to generate angry reactions. And not just from Meppel....
What does the canalside have against Drenthe anyway? Now Marieke Heebink again. It started with Yvonne Kroonenberg who, after a visit to Assen, spoke of "Simple people with those classic Drenthe heads, but with expressionless eyes. I walked around there and tried to understand those people in the same way I try to immerse myself in the spiritual life of animals." Afterwards, Kroonenberg rushed to...
After the world premiere of Words & Beyond II: Nan Sul Hun by Seung-Won Oh yesterday at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, the audience stood up as one to applaud Slagwerk Den Haag and the soloists. It was therefore a magical performance, which will be repeated at De Doelen in Rotterdam and at Theater aan de...
We are moving too fast. Politics moves too fast, the news moves too fast, and no one takes the time anymore to spend a quiet time listening to a piece of music, reading a thick book, or listening to and watching slow art for 36 hours at the Bruges Concert Hall. So the concert hall in Bruges is organising a festival with...
The National Theatre will premiere Blueprint for an Even Better Life on 8 November 2014, which addresses, among other things, the position of artists in society. A theme that also featured in their recent Tasso, and in Toneelgroep Amsterdam's successful The Fountainhead. Is the subject of art back on the theatre agenda due to the changed cultural politics of the past...
On Monday 27 October, "The Culture Congress" took place. A cleverly chosen name that suggested that this congress was unique in its kind and that there was a big organisation behind it. All the more surprising that this was only the first edition. And that the initiative came from one person. During his opening speech, Job Gerlings took us through...
After years of concerts in the 'Red Box' on the A2, AVROTROS' De Vrijdag van Vredenburg on Radio 4 returned to the centre of Utrecht last summer. The new TivoliVredenburg was built entirely around Vredenburg's former Great Hall, renowned worldwide for its fabulous acoustics. Many a tear was shed at the reopening. To a new hall belongs...
'The experts have written an inspiring guide, which demonstrates the importance of good music education and also makes clear which steps need to be taken to achieve this. The experts spoke to representatives of primary education, teacher training institutes and the cultural sector. The guide has broad support. Like the experts, I believe that good music education is a responsibility of...
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