Anything for which people enter a stage.
This month, Reinbert de Leeuw celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday. Not only do television, radio, internet media and written press devote extensive attention to the no small achievements of this champion of contemporary music, but he is also being honoured with his own festival, 'Reinbert 75'. This will be organised
Armando Navarro (Argentina, 1930 - Amsterdam 2013), former artistic director of Scapino Ballet, passed away last Sunday. Together with his wife Marian Sarstädt formed Navarro one of the Netherlands' best-known dance couples, alongside Han Ebbelaar and Alexandra Radius (Het Nationale Ballet) and Jiří Kylián and Sabine Kupferberg (Nederlands Dans Theater).
Ever since the establishment of the NJO Summer Academy in 2001, one composer takes centre stage every year, in the current edition it is Steve Reich (1936). During the NJO Music Summer, two hundred music students from fifteen countries will play a good number of compositions by the American grandmaster.
Dancer Ellen Edinoff died in her hometown of Amsterdam on Tuesday at the age of 70. Ellen, together with her husband Koert Stuyf, formed a unique dance couple in the 1960s-'70s that reactions in extremes. The Dutch dance world came of age partly thanks to them.
On the day that a vote was to be held in The Hague on the new Spui Forum, it has been announced that Robert van Leer is leaving as business director of Nederlands Dans Theater. Van Leer is resigning for purely "personal reasons", according to the press officer of the renowned dance company.
Still competing at the top and successfully entering Europe with 60 per cent less budget. Impossible, cries many. Only with a new stadium, argues another. And with extra investments in the winter break. But it can be done, according to a few.
The collaboration between pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama and choreographer Nicole Beutler in the performance 'Shirokuro', seen last week at the Holland Festival, provides a beautiful perspective on two piano sonatas by Galina Ustvolskaya. 'Shirokuro' means black and white in Japanese. Despite strong visuals and impressive co-protagonists on stage, the Russian composer's absolute music is never explained and therefore retains its sheer power.
We already wrote about the name change of the Orchestra of the East into the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (NedSym). The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra (NedPho) was not amused and felt that the Enschede-based orchestra was infringing its trademark and trademark rights and demanded that the orchestra choose a different name. Summary proceedings followed and in April 2012 the court ruled that the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra could only not use the abbreviation NedSO, but did not have to change its name.
What to expect from a 'musicabanda' from East Tyrol? Gemütliche folk music? Yodelling? Dance music for weddings and parties? An evening in a beer pub? Either way: definitely not Mahler. But why not, thought the Franui from the village of Innervillgraten. Result: an enervating performance around orchestral songs. We have never heard Mahler like this before.
Holland Festival
Holland Festival
'The Pyre', the latest show from internationally rising star Gisèle Vienne, initially seems less disturbing than her previous work. Pieces like 'Jerk' (2008), based on the true story of a young serial killer, and 'This is how you will disappear' (2010), starring a dark forest, were only seen in a few places in the Netherlands. Hopefully, this performance at the Holland Festival will change that. Gisèle Vienne once studied harp, then philosophy and eventually trained as a puppeteer. But Vienne sees herself primarily as a visual artist working with time, on a stage, where different rhythms, motifs and figures come together.
Holland Festival
Men and women together on the dance floor, it is still forbidden in large parts of the Muslim world. Two years ago, the dance performance 'Nya' was at the Holland Festival, a piece written on the skin of nine Algerian dancers, mostly B-Boyz from the streets, but also the son of a ballet teacher from Algiers participated. This year, French choreographer Abou Lagraa, his wife Nawal Ait Benalla and much of the Algerian cast returned to the Holland Festival with a piece in which women also dance.
Holland Festival
Is the kingdom of the dead in the opera Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa a 3D garden full of brilliant colour, director Peter Sellars chooses in Desdemona by Toni Morrison and Rokia Traoré for sober black and white. On the stage of a sold-out Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ are glass bottles and jars, sometimes lit from below, sometimes from above, with hanging light bulbs like flickering candles. On the left are a number of ngonis (Malian lute) and two koras (Malian harp lute), played by black musicians.
Holland Festival
Mary is arrested at a demonstration and thrown into a cell next to a heroin addict, while her sister Martha has just started a shelter for the homeless. And Lazarus, yes, Jesus brings him back to life here too, with downright breathtaking sounds. And we are not even halfway through.
Holland Festival
From the mild, everyday cacophony around the Muziekgebouw in the afternoon, on the terrace by the IJ, you'll get into the silence of the concert hall in a few steps. For three and a half hours (with over two hours of breaks in between), Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag and Capella Amsterdam will play and sing your ears off. Steven Schick (a.o. once Bang on a Can), not only conducts, but also takes charge of the middle part of the concert, at the Bimhuis, as a percussionist. Under his inspired direction, 'Nine Rivers' navigates between spectacle and purism: a battle between complex form and the simplicity of raw sound matter.
Holland Festival
Cowardly knight defeats untalented rule fetishist with help from wise cobbler and wins singing contest and the hand of coquettish goldsmith's daughter. Or: boy meets girl on the streets of Nuremberg and decides to enter the local version of Nuremberg's got talent. The judges send him away, but he gets the audience vote. Wagner wouldn't be Wagner, however, if he didn't take about five hours for this story.
Holland Festival
Amsterdam, 5-6-2013 - It is difficult to go uninhibited to a production that has already caused so much controversy as Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa. This "first 3D opera" was slammed as "soporific" after its premiere at London's Barbican Theatre last April, but also hailed as "the future of opera".
Holland Festival
Forget all the fuss about the first ever 3D film opera, forget all the fuss in British newspapers. Michel van der Aa himself sighed in interview that, on reflection, he would have loved to have made the second 3D film opera. And perhaps he had
Holland Festival
This month is all about the Holland Festival. Culture Press reports almost daily. What are we most looking forward to?
Holland Festival
Benjamin Millepied is a glamour boy who conquers everything in his path: from actress Natalie Portman to the Paris Opera ballet. In reality, after the premiere in Amsterdam, the Frenchman looks like a
With a real gala, the Reisopera 2.0 presents itself. And immediately strips the gala of its stuffy image. With thanks to the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble.
Holland Festival
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