Anything for which people enter a stage.
Jean-Michel Jarre was visiting the Netherlands. At the Heineken Music Hall, old and new fans could enjoy his hypnotic work. I went there to listen, but of course also to watch. Forty years ago, Jean-Michel Jarre, pioneer in synthesiser music, released Oxygène. Anno 2016, we are 12 million copies sold. On that huge scale, the Frenchman produces...
From 6 December, theatre Kikker will show a week-long anthology of talented and diverse young theatre makers. We looked ahead to this Winter Collection. Hannah Roelofs, herself just over 30, issues five warnings for people over 29. 1. Twenty-somethings! 'This is the generation that's losing his or her...
'What is the relevance of dance?' Since the The Relevance of Dance conference in March 2016, this question has been haunting my mind. Above all, I want to know why more people should dance. Therefore, I decide to put the question to inspiring and progressive dance teachers. The second one I question is Andrew Greenwood, who six months ago...
Each month, in the (Un)heard series, I present extraordinary sound that does not go unnoticed and unsung. In this November edition: Jacob Kirkegaard, Oren Ambarchi, Glice and N.M.O. Jacob Kirkegaard - Munk (Cassette, Phinery Tapes) Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard investigates the impact of sound resonance on our ears as well as the rest of the body. In Kirkegaard's work, direct, intimate contact via...
Until 31 December, classical music lovers can browse the unprecedented amount of sheet music, CDs and music books at Broekmans & van Poppel. The iconic shop, stately located next to Brasserie Keyzer and the Concertgebouw on the Van Baerlestraat in Amsterdam, will close its doors after 102 years. The family-run business will continue in Badhoevedorp, where the central warehouse is already...
In 1975, jazz musician Misha Mengelberg and artist Wim T. Schippers organised Een behoorlijk kabaal (Quite a racket) at Amsterdam's Mickery Theatre. For a week, they explore the different meanings of a concert in 'inimitable musical theatre'. Jacqueline Oskamp chose it as the title of her recently published book describing Dutch music history of the past century. Sad conclusion: there is...
Meg Stuart's two-hour heroic epic Until Our Hearts Stop, showing at the Rotterdam Schouwburg this week, does not engage in dramatic construction according to the rules of Aristotle's Poetics. We don't know who those people are there on stage. Nor do they seem to have been given any special assignment, although they are clearly being...
It is around 11 o'clock on Sunday evening. Jlin taps a rattling beat in the air with her index fingers. When the relentlessly sucking bass kicks in, she accompanies it with an elbow down. Her grin from ear to ear is met with cheers from the audience. Le Guess Who? 2016 (hereafter LGW) is coming to an end, but that's what these...
Last weekend, I attended a coffee concert by the baroque company The Continuo Company. At 53, I was one of the youngest visitors. Around me wrinkled faces and grey hair. I increasingly hear that ageing audiences for classical music are a problem. I think this is big nonsense and am becoming increasingly annoyed by this...
The show Holy F opens with an audition. Two young women present themselves to a director - a man. They pronounce their phrases impeccably simultaneous, with the sweet tone men like to hear. Their confusion grows. Do they really understand what the director wants from them? Can they handle the role they aspire to? Playing a strong woman: is...
In turbulent times, an evening of dance works therapeutically. Especially when three former Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) dancers show new work in Here we live and now. Only, anyone expecting a sharp look at current affairs by the programme title will be disappointed. Here we live and now refers mainly to choreographers who live or work in The Hague and shows a snapshot of their...
'It took me 18 years to make a new recording,' Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich (1958) says with a modest smile. 'Just as much time as it takes a baby to come of age.' It is Wednesday, November 2. A special moment, because on that day Pogorelich's CD-less new recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas No 22 and No 24 will go on...
To get straight to the point: the National Opera's new production of Handel's oratorio Jephta is superb. Decors, costumes, staging and performance: all top-notch. So after the premiere Wednesday 9 November, performers and production team received a well-deserved ovation from a sold-out Stopera. It is no mean feat the small dramatic...
On Tuesday 2 November, Cappella Amsterdam presented a new CD at the Orgelpark. This includes Arvo Pärt's large-scale choral work Kanon Pokajanen, which was also performed live. After the concert, chief conductor Daniel Reuss was appointed Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion. This very high royal decoration is only awarded to people "with extraordinary merits...
Unlike older colleagues, Bruno Mantovani (Châtillon, 1974) did not suffer from the modernist umbrella shadow that Pierre Boulez long cast over French musical life. He writes lyrical melodies as much as dissonant tone clusters and jazzy chords spiced with a pinch of microtonality. That he was appointed director of the Paris Conservatoire in 2010 illustrates how strong the musical climate...
It no longer buzzes, hums, sings, saws and buzzes in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The cello caravan has left. The sixth edition of the Cello Biennale Amsterdam is over, leaving the thousands of cello and music fans with a feeling of emptiness. Nowhere else does such an amazing festival of cello take place in ten days, where the audience feels like...
'He likes a joke,' says Fedor Teunisse of Slagwerk Den Haag, calling composer Brendan Faegre (1985) onto the Bimhuis stage. The young composer explains how the percussionists and the Biennale Cello Band should perform his Magical Quest for the Enchanted Armor. 'It's a game piece,' he says enthusiastically. 'The four percussionists and four cellists...
Festival Le Guess Who? in Utrecht is on the eve of its tenth edition. From 10 to 13 November, more than a hundred artists will take possession of every conceivable place in the city of Dom where you can perform with good grace. They come from far and wide, just like the visitors. Expect the unexpected, with the whole family? Is that...
From 19 to 23 October, more than two thousand music professionals gathered in Santiago de Compostella for the 22nd World Music Expo (WOMEX). I was there and came back with mixed feelings. My first music fair experience was the WOMEX in Rotterdam. In 2001, the Maas city was the cultural capital of Europe and thus had extra resources at its disposal. The Berlin organiser of...
During the sixth edition of the Cello Biennale, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is a bustling place to be. Immediately upon entering on the first floor, you enter an atmospheric pop-up brasserie, with market stalls set up in every other nook and cranny. There is a selection of handmade cellos, bows, bridges, dampers and strings alongside a large selection of magazines, CDs...
Once built for a Belgian dance bar, The Busy Drone came to the Netherlands in the 1960s. Publisher De Bezige Bij placed the barrel organ at its stand at the annual book fair in the RAI in 1968, which explains its striking name. Five years later, director Edy de Wilde purchased the instrument for his Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it remained until...
Zvizdal, the documentary theatre portrait of Pétro and Nadia filmed by Berlin between 2011 and 2016, is not only in Paris, Ghent and Athens. This moving story can also be seen in the Netherlands until 11 November 2016. Near the place where an atomic experiment failed in 1986, Berlin and Zvizdal tell a moving story about an old peasant couple. They remained as...
Every morning Maarten Mostert, spiritual father and artistic director of the Cello Biennale Amsterdam, is squeezing oranges at half past seven in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The early birds among cello lovers then flock to the place to be for a free croissant with orange juice, followed by a top-notch performance of one of Bach's six Cello Suites in the Bach...
Theatre group Aluin celebrates its 25th anniversary. The company, which originated at the Utrecht acting school, celebrated at the place where it all started: Utrecht's Theatercafé De Bastaard. On Sunday 23 October, they reprised their first ever performance, a play entitled 'It', based on the novella The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James. About a man who thinks he is destined...
The Cello Biennale Amsterdam, the world's largest cello festival taking place from 20 to 29 October in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, has begun and it is already taking a battering. For ten days, 27 international cello soloists, 6 orchestras, 11 ensembles, 1 choir and many musicians from 26 countries will give over 800 performances. From morning...
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