Old or new, classic or modern, minimal or world. Pop. Tonal and atonal.
'No barbaric act can ever erase press freedom,' French President Hollande tweeted immediately after the bloody attack on the editors of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. German Chancellor Angela Merkel walked side by side with him in a mass demonstration for freedom of expression. But that was the reality of the time. Now she stands ...
"This was actually a mixtape," says Yassine Boussaid, Saturday 9 April 2016 after his concert, "as my cousin used to give me, for the long way back from Morocco to Amsterdam. Yassine is the business leader of the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra (AAO). Together with artistic director Mohamed Chairi and director-writer Mohamed Aadroun, he puts together concerts at breakneck speed....
Last year, Julia Wolfe (1958) won the Pulitzer Prize with her oratorio Anthracite Fields. In this poignant piece about the plight of miners, she draws on American folk music. She composed it for the co-founded Bang on a Can All-Stars, a New York ensemble that became known for its rousing mix of rock, mimal music and...
This write-up may begin somewhat strangely, but the end is going to evoke very different images: All sorts of things are set in motion internally when I find myself in the smallest room of my house. This is because - besides nice, sweet cards from friends and family - there are clippings hanging on the door, theatre guides, newspaper sections and smart magazines lying around. So...
The music video once attracted famous directors to music, and vice versa, music video directors later turned out to be great filmmakers. But despite youtube and vimeo, the music video has lost impact and importance in the last decade. This is not surprising, because where once MTV determined which (music) images we got to see, we now determine that ourselves. MTV now only broadcasts music on theme channels...
The Orchestra of the East is allowed half a million in red. That is the outcome of the 'Urban Commission' in Enschede. In a fortnight, the city council will formally take the decision, but with the commitment of a large majority, any debate will be wasted time then and the proposal would be better added to the list of hammer pieces immediately. That would have been a month...
At five, he started playing the violin, and after only six months he gave his first performance. At 17, he was the youngest participant ever to win the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition. In 2002, Vadim Repin, born in Novosibirsk in 1971, played at Willem-Alexander and Máxima's wedding concert, together with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Three years ago, Repin started his own...
'Write about that!' How many times have I heard or read that as a cultural journalist. From very good and interesting people, of course. People who make beautiful things, too. But also people who assume that I, as a writer on a website, will therefore immediately hop on a train to a remote corner of the country...
On 4 March 2016, her debut CD Varmints, a mixture of new-classical, electronica and avant-pop, was released and Scottish-Canadian Anna Meredith (b. 1978) was showered with praise. 'One of the most innovative minds in modern British music,' wrote one critic. 'Vibrant and kaleidoscopic,' wrote another. 'Exceptional soundscapes of synthesisers, beats and other things' reposted a third. A fourth felt...
As soon as soprano Miah Persson enters the stage, we hear a loud, electronic crack. Is a branch breaking here, one of composer Michel van der Aa's (Oss, 1970) favourite sounds? Or is it a stone crashing into another after all? Boulders play a major role in his latest opera Blank Out; at the end they crush with thunderous roar
Grzegorz Marciniak, a music maker worth following. And I have been doing so since 2006. That's when I first saw and heard his work performed in The Hague by the then Woof collective. I made contact, it clicked. In 2007, Picca premiered. A work Marciniak wrote for yours truly (recorder solo). And also at my most recent experience, February...
Aaltje van Buuren enjoys her busy life. She is the wife of successful star conductor Jaap van Zweden. She dedicates her charm and energy worldwide to non-profit organisations that improve the daily lives of autistic children. Music and art are forces that run like a thread through everything she touches. The family can be seen every week...
The stupidest question I come across all too often is THE question: what is the tangible result of your projects for audiences? Or more broadly drawn: what can art & culture measurably add to lives? Add that question together with the current clamour for 'utility in art' and I get accutely red pimples from these non-answerable questions. And I...
What does the future of opera look like? The National Opera tries to answer this in the Opera Forward Festival: new visions new voices, organised for the first time this year to mark its 50th anniversary. The ten-day festival kicks off 15 March with the world premiere of Only the Sound Remains by Kaija Saariaho. About...
1. Kwatta, Mariken (youth) The question was not whether Nijmegen youth theatre company Kwatta would ever venture into Mariken van Nieumeghen, but when. The bar was set high with successful previous book and film adaptations, but where the medieval Mariken needs two miracles, Jibbe Willems' adaptation is exciting even without a fall from a great height and the miraculous loosening of iron rings...
Huge, deep black shadows fall on a backdrop of calligraphic foliage in every conceivable shade of grey. Director Peter Sellars intently follows the movements of the three main characters during a run-through of 'Feather Mantle' at De Nationale Opera. Together with 'Always Strong', this short opera forms the double-bill Only the Sound Remains by Kaija Saariaho with which 15 March's Opera Forward Festival...
'The most important thing is to bring music to the audience,' says Daniele Gatti on Thursday 25 February during the presentation of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's new season. 'Amsterdam meets Gatti' we read on large posters behind him. That does not appear to be a word too many: the brand-new principal conductor will be involved in all series, travels on the tour RCO meets Europe,...
When such a broad-minded prof (composer, poet and more) as Hamel, along with allies, offers his thoughts on a subject close to my heart, I can't help but run to the bookstore (fortunately, one of them ordered without my purchase guarantee, because hey, imagine if it turns out to be a dry fact summary)....
Joey Roukens (Schiedam, 1982) studied composition at Rotterdam Conservatory and took private piano lessons with Ton Hartsuiker. Since graduating in 2006, he has been able to reach a large audience with his energetic, infectious music. Commissions are pouring in, from no small number of clients. He has already written two pieces for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: Out of Control (2011) and Chase...
The raw in Something Raw can mean all sorts of things. The first thought might be something rough, as in the effect of sandpaper on skin or the havoc left by an elephant in the china shop. But rough is a derivative meaning. Raw first of all means unprocessed and fresh. There is a certain hope in the combination of rough and raw: artists who like...
Following the exploration of the labour market in the cultural sector made by the Social and Economic Council (SER) and the Council for Culture last month, there was a lot of attention on the low earning self-employed in the cultural sector. Promising headlines such as "Everyone gets paid except the artist" (NRC) and "It's a matter of waiting every month to see if I earn enough" (Volkskrant) could account for recognition...
'In the new season, we go back to normal,' Pierre Audi said on Monday 15 February during the presentation of the new season of The National Opera. He does, however, continue the forward-looking Opera Forward Festival, which was set up to mark its 50th anniversary. There are also quite a few new own productions on the roll, including the world premiere of...
Never before has the Holland Festival placed itself at the centre of society as it is today. The 2016 programme is steeped in the turbulent times in which we live. The Netherlands holds the presidency of the European Union this spring. Artistic director Ruth Mackenzie has taken this fact unflinchingly to give 'Europe' a wide place in the programming. In presenting...
Erik Voermans (1958) is one of those people who writes down what you think yourself, but would never air publicly. The music editor of Het Parool likes to pose as your unsuspecting neighbour's boy, watching the music world with amazement. Take the phenomenon of opera: 'That's when someone with a knife in his taas walks around for half an hour singing that he's going to die.' If he...
On 4 February, music journalist and musicologist Erik Voermans' latest book was presented: From Andriessen to Zappa. After twenty-five years of writing for Het Parool, Voermans has collected his conversations with the greats of modern-classical music in a chic edition. Paul van der Steen's detailed drawings inspire listening to the music discussed. The presentation in the Great Hall of the Muziekgebouw...
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