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"Programmatic ingenuity goes hand in hand with Fischer's ebullient and finely crafted performances". So when someone says that about you, you have earned a prize. So that is what the jury of formerly the Classical Music Prize thought of Iván Fischer, the Hungarian-born conductor who was therefore awarded the 'Ovation' on Monday 17 October 2011. And so then the 'Ovation'...
She was accused of fraud and therefore suspended in September. However, a judgment has now been handed down in the summary proceedings that Saskia Kriekhaus, director of the Lucent Danstheater and the Anton Philipszaal, both in The Hague, had filed against her dismissal. And so Saskia Kriekhaus won that. So that suddenly everyone in The Hague's arts sector is heartbroken,...
While anti-capitalists were plotting to occupy Amsterdam's Beursplein this week - if you can at least put the protesters under that heading - in the US, anger over THE 99 PERCENT shifted to the concert hall. The discussion flared up in response to two events. Wall Street was occupied; and the Metropolitan Opera received $182 million in donations in one year, a record amount....
The New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Opera in New York has brought in record donations this fiscal year. The tally stands at $182 million. This is 50 per cent more than the previous year. However, revenue from ticket sales has been declining for a few years. In addition, since general manager Peter Gelb took office, spending patterns have been soaring....
The new Giving Act, the cultural palliative with which the Rutte Cabinet claims to be accommodating the art world, is flawed. We don't say this, because we only know about art, but this is what the Dutch tax consultants say. And they know a lot about your taxes, and little about art. Extremely reliable, in other words. And what virtues...
Thanks to Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen, who posted this message on facebook. Dance is also thought of, despite the fact that the VVD sees dance as a branch of sport. Well: in America, they know all about sport, and therefore sporting behaviour. Up to a point. Because what did Beyoncé do in her latest clip? Right: a choreographed...
Anyone who was still left wondering what the vision of the governing VVD party on art is now out. For that vision is simple. Art is sport. According to the VVD. So said the alderman of Rotterdam, so said the spouse of top wrestler Albert Verlinde, the as mayor of Maastricht ancillary runner Onno Hoes. During the opening of the Dutch Dance Days, he gave...
"If 1 person can prove that by collaborating with Red Bull, a sixteenth-century painting thins out or falls off the wall, I will stop working on it immediately." Edwin Jacobs, director of Centraal Museum Utrecht, opened his doors to the soft drink manufacturer. Under the title 'Art of Can', the museum is exhibiting artworks made from Red Bull cans. "Red Bull gives you wings,...
Does a soft drink manufacturer's advertisement belong in a museum? In Edwin Jacobs's view, it can and fits seamlessly into these times. He opened his Centraal Museum to artworks made from Red Bull cans. Something to which not everyone reacts positively. The 'Art of Can' exhibition shows the sixty best creations that both amateurs and some...
This week, the Connecting Arts festival takes place in Utrecht. This festival, contrary to the expectation raised by the title, revolves entirely around the organ. The instrument is in a bottomless identity crisis. The solution lies in connecting with other art forms: connecting arts. The organist. One of those guys with a beard. Not a meticulously trimmed weekend shadow, but a wild...
There was a time, when art did not have to draw full theatres to be accepted by the population. After all, out of the total budget of a municipality, something like art costs no more than a penny, so you don't get worse, while at best you can only get better. So is...
After 'saving' the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and securing a budget for the opera, the PVV had to once again explore the limits of its own opportunism. Indeed, the already disintegrated group was vehemently opposed to securing the unique private art collection of Wijlre Castle on the grounds that this collection of world-renowned artworks would not be understood by ordinary...
'I will never go to anything undergrounds again,' sighs a lady as she leaves the auditorium. She looks pained, after more than an hour and a half of Neutral Hero by director Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players. The paper description of the show may therefore lead a potential visitor astray. A 'country opera' sounds far too...
What art can accomplish. At least Enschede gained a church, thanks to the people of festival Grenswerk, which lasts until 2 October. Because, where before there was a somewhat dull square next to Enschede's railway station, there is now a church made of colourful lego blocks. Intended as a multifunctional festival pavilion. Temporary too, because the lego building blocks can...
"What we lose audiences massively with is that if we give seven shows a week, quietly three of them are so substandard that people say 'And now I won't go for three years'. What we need to do is put the performance level back on a structurally high level." One of the statements made by composer Jeroen Sleijfer during the lively roundtable discussion - with no table...
"We are blind to the big changes in the world and meanwhile we are arguing with one-liners on Radio One." These words, chronicled by reporter Robbert van Heuven from the mouth of writer Abdelkader Benali during the Choice Debate on Tuesday 20 September perhaps best sums up what The International Choice was all about. Artistic director Annemie Vanackere...
A procession of bright red and green bicycles snakes along the Meuse, ridden by people looking around curiously, conferring with each other and wondering at every moment if 'this is part of it'. The Parfum de BoemBoem ticket in their pocket is proof: this is not an ordinary bike ride, but one with theatrical surprises. Guide Sereh enjoys the questioning looks and leads the group to the first location: the waste incinerator in Rotterdam-South.
Listen here to the podcast/work in progress by Jowi Schmitz who attended the event with chef Natasja Postma: Fantasising about 2020 in International Choice 2011 Liposuction fat. Blood. Vomit. 'You can look at it that way too!' says the Appetitheque's food designer excitedly. It doesn't bother her that her thin-walled jelly pudding, processed cola and her yellow-white lumps of beef salad are still...
Far more people waved at the Queen on Princes Day than stood on Malieveld a day earlier to protest against austerity. Why are we unable to revolt? And what can we learn from the Tahrir Square uprising. These were some of the questions that came up during 'Lessons in revolt', the debate...
Opinion pollsters take note: "People give the moderate answer to most questions they are asked in life. The characters in 'This is not a love story' are very ordinary, very average. In that, it clicks between those two. It's an ending where you feel an enormous satisfaction." Enthusiasm prevails after the opening weekend of The International Choice of the...
For the opening night of The International Choice, the Rotterdam Schouwburg was briefly transformed into Berlin's Volksbühne. The same black plastic rags on the walls, the same ugly yellow front curtain and - most strikingly - the seats in the auditorium have been replaced by white beanbags. Those beanbags, by the way, are widely despised and mocked in Berlin. They should...
Let's start again with yet another sloppiness of the Rutte government: that damned VAT measure on the arts, which are the only ones to be bounced to the 'normal' rate of 19%. VVD doesn't like it, CDA isn't happy about it, but, because tolerance specialist Martin Bosma once had to play a red toadstool in the school play, he has eternal...
Update: the poem in question was not meant to convince Voltaire of the Prussian thrust, but an Italian, Francesco Alegerotti. A scrabeus poem by Frederick the Great has surfaced. A poem, whose existence but content was unknown. Until now, that is. Today, the German quality magazine Die Zeit comes out with the full text. And Bild Zeitung has...
'The problem with art in public spaces is that you can't avoid it. At least with art in a museum, you can still choose not to go to the museum, but with these works, you are literally forced to walk a long way to miss them. That fact, and the fact that you can...
"My commitment to the city (Rotterdam) and the orchestra knows no end," Valeri Gergyev spoke on the occasion of the Gergyev Festival taking place in Rotterdam this week. This is good news, as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the former principal conductor still get along well. And to be backed by this global top-five conductor is...
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