Old or new, classic or modern, minimal or world. Pop. Tonal and atonal.
On Thursday 19 October, Peter Eötvös conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Dutch premiere of his organ concerto Multiversum, which he commissioned for the company. His brand new composition is flanked by works by György Ligeti and Claude Vivier. Transylvania's rich musical tradition Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös (Székelyudvarhely, 1944) grew up in Transylvania. Towards the end of...
On Sunday 10 September, the Gaudeamus Award for composers under 30 was presented in TivoliVredenburg. Winner was Dutch guitarist, composer and instrument designer Aart Strootman (1987). He was chosen from five nominees and received the prize from jury member Christopher Trapani. The jury also included Joe Cutler and Mayke Nas. Like last year, Gaudeamus invited its...
The Gaudeamus Music Week seems to have definitely left behind the stage of thorough but audience-unfriendly 'bleep-grunt'. The renowned festival of new music will present 129 compositions from 32 countries over five days. Asko|Schönberg and Cappella Amsterdam kicked off Wednesday 6 September with a motley variety of styles. Thus, the opening concert was a measure of what modern music lovers could expect up to...
You expect a lot from a festival dedicated to early music, but not contemporary music theatre. Yet that is exactly what artistic director Xavier Vandamme has in store for us. On Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 August, street theatre group Kamchátka presents Musica Fugit, a performance about refugees. Visitors become part of the story. This way, they experience for themselves what it means when fleeing is a...
Especially for our regular readers and subscribers, temporarily available for everyone to view: the e-book with all the stories about Theatre Festival Boulevard 2017 listed. Members and subscribers can also download the book, and read it on their e-reader.
Wine tasting and listening to medieval music are usually things people only do with very serious faces. So it took five glasses, three drunken singers and a good hour before the mob in the sober Heilig Hart church in Den Bosch loosened up a bit. With a Frontignan to boot. You do start fantasising about the great dinner you had at...
Het lijkt linke soep om na een maand of zes een album tot Plaat van het Jaar uit te roepen. Felicia Atkinson’s ‘Hand in Hand’ is echter minimaal hét album van de afgelopen maanden en van dit moment. En het leukste is: je bent er bovendien moeiteloos de rest van het jaar zoet mee. Fluisteren ‘Plaat van het Jaar’ is…
When he was given a car to play with as a child, you wouldn't hear or see him all day. Because he does love people and likes to perform, but off-stage rapper Glenn de Randamie (32), aka Typhoon, prefers to be by himself. Then he has peace, humour and creativity for ten. 'The more alone I...
[This post was already online under the title 'Save us from the Transition Office', but has been modified in a few details] While you are preparing for a well-deserved holiday, people in the arts sector are working on a new model. That new model is needed because the old model is no longer adequate. That old model, and we are of course talking about our...
The three-part CD box set of choral and ensemble works by György Kurtág is, in a word, overwhelming. His soul-transcending sounds are sublimely interpreted by Reinbert de Leeuw et al. The recording, too, is impeccable. This box set is already historic, a monument to the Hungarian grandmaster, who turned 91 last February. Kurtág's existentialist music was played in our country as early as the mid-1970s,...
Een passie wijden aan een sprookjesfiguur? De Amerikaanse componist David Lang draait er zijn hand niet voor om. Hij baseerde zijn koorwerk the little match girl passion op een sprookje van Hans Christian Andersen. Donderdag 6 juli wordt het uitgevoerd door het Nederlands Kamerkoor in het Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ. Het concert vormt onderdeel van de Koorbiënnale en wordt verlevendigd…
Het voordeel van een lidmaatschap als abonnee van Cultuurpers is natuurlijk vooral dat we kunnen bestaan dankzij jou. Zo blijft ons onafhankelijke geluid hoorbaar, zo krijg je de duiding van het nieuws zoals je die nergens anders krijgt. In juni zijn in totaal 14 auteurs voor je op pad gegaan om zoveel mogelijk voorstellingen te zien van het Holland Festival.…
Smoothly they descend the stairs of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Lucas and Arthur Jussen are dressed to kill. With their fussy-cut, see-through costumes, they have already won their first battle before they have even played one note of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mantra. Not only in their outfits, but also in their quirky playing, the young pianists show guts. Lovely, such a...
Lucas and Arthur Jussen are 'hot'. You could call the young piano brothers the headliner of this Holland Festival Proms. Well before the start of their concert, visitors are therefore already gathering in the corridors around the main hall of the Concertgebouw. Everyone is out for a good seat. To sit, because standing, as we know it from...
Setan Jawa is the latest film by prominent Indonesian director Garin Nugroho (b. 1961). It is a 'silent' film, shot in black and white by Teoh Gay Hian. It was shown at the Muziekgebouw aan t IJ during the Holland Festival last weekend. The music to the film is played live by Rahayu Supanggah Gamelan Orchestra and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. Inspired...
On Wednesday 20 June, Kajsa Ollongren launched the Forbidden Music Regained website at the Uilenburgersjoel in Amsterdam. The capital's deputy mayor and alderman for culture quoted astronaut Neil Armstrong, calling the project 'a giant step for mankind'. She continued, "The website is also important for the city of Amsterdam, because we cannot and must not forget what happened in our city seventy years ago.
Florian Boesch is at the front of the stage, around him are his bandmates. On big screen behind the band, a chair slowly melts away. Boesch has hands casually in his pockets. With a smile, the violinist initiates a horlepie-like tune. Wie leiblich und frölich, Zu schweben, zu singen, Von glänzender Höhe, Zur Erde zu blicken! By the clutches...
American composer Julia Wolfe (1958) has a thing for the social history of her homeland. Steel Hammer reflects on the unequal struggle of man versus machine, as described in the folk ballad John Henry. Anthracite Fields zooms in on the hard life of miners in Pennsylvania. She won a Pulitzer Prize with it in 2015. The full-length oratorio is experiencing two July...
In the Netherlands, this Thursday afternoon is sunny. Clothes stick to bodies. Hotpants everywhere. Boys take off their shirts in parks. This afternoon, Queens of the Stone Age's new single plops onto YouTube. The Way You Used to Do is sweaty and hot. Pleasure settled Queens of the Stone Age don't surprise. There's no need to. The band is grand...
Some 25 years ago, 10 musicians got together in Innervillgraten. A hamlet in East Tyrol, to play funeral marches. A band formed: Franui. By making quirky arrangements of music such as by Schubert and Mahler, Franui gained international success. At the 2017 Holland Festival, they will perform a programme of music about life and impermanence. In collaboration with baritone Florian...
Among classical music-loving audiences, the two young pianists Lucas (1993) and Arthur (1996) Jussen need little introduction. For many years, the talented piano brothers have been filling halls like the Concertgebouw with four-handed or otherwise, interpretations of classics such as Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. With the avant-garde piece Mantra by Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), to be performed as part of the Holland Festival,...
The Shadow of Ideas (De Umbris Idearum ... The Acousmatic Memory Palace) is the title of one of the pieces played by electronica duo Mouse on Mars with Ensemble Musikfabrik. The shadows are indeed shooting against the scrap of the Muziekgebouw. Ideas, however, have not yet formed. Nudges to do so roar loosely through the space. Transported elsewhere Akoesmatic music...
The doors are closing and the society of spectacle, as described by Guy Debord, remains outside. George Crumb (1929) - in focus at this year's Holland Festival - unpacks contemporary man with his Metamorphoses, Book I (which has its European premiere Friday night). Gone, then, goes the shell of the ongoing pandemonium in which a diarrhoea of word, image and sound meet...
The Orphanage of Dutch Music presents monthly 'forgotten Dutch masterpieces' at Amsterdam's Splendor stage. 'To discover the finer points', these are performed twice, interrupted by 'a short commentary or interview with special table guests'. On paper, a golden formula. Rightly so, the Holland Festival adopted three episodes. With the music, during the opening concert on Thursday, it was all in...
Roaring programmers announce new compositions: "World premiere!" jubilate the posters. Superb, but in contemporary music practice, that primal performance is often immediately the last. The score goes into an archive folder. The notes fall silent; the roar falls silent. The Orphanage takes care of those forgotten works. Context David Dramm snatches such pieces from oblivion and presents them with context at the Orphanage
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