Old or new, classic or modern, minimal or world. Pop. Tonal and atonal.
A damning report by organisational consultancy Berenschot, the voluntary or involuntary departure of director Harm Mannak, repeated bickering in the State Assembly and panting reports of high salaries for directors and artistic directors, all the way to the national newspapers. It marks the chaos at HET Symfonieorkest and the lack of any form of direction, not only at the orchestra itself,...
Mrs Cornelys' Entertainments. Under that remarkable title, baroque company New Dutch Academy presented a concert in a theatrical setting. The Hague's Korzo Theatre turned into a society evening. Visiting a much-discussed lady from 18th-century London. It was a feast for the eyes and ears. New Dutch Academy has a changing line-up in addition to some permanent members. The Academy keeps itself - the name...
There is usually no 'master plan' behind the best and worst things in life. Of course, 25-year-old Adele's 'come-back' has been carefully orchestrated, from the tentative release, to the title of the first song, the wave of spontaneous covers around the world and the announcement not to go on spotify (for now). In fact, the orchestration is so obvious that...
What titles come to mind when you hear the name Arvo Pärt? Sonatina opus 1; Symphony no. 1; Perpetuum mobile, or Fratres; Für Alina; Spiegel im Spiegel? My guess is the second set, because it was with pieces like these that Pärt conquered the world in the late 20th century. Audiences flocked in droves to immerse themselves in his sonorous sound world, but...
Music students are generally conservative. When I studied musicology in the 1990s, we could go to the concerts in new-music temple the IJsbreker for only five guilders. I eagerly used this opportunity to hear the very latest notes by living composers like Pauline Oliveros and Sofia Gubaidoelina for a trifle. I never saw a single fellow student there. Still I am...
Composer and pianist Jeroen van Vliet - as 2014 Boy Edgar Prize winner - was commissioned to draw inspiration from Leo Cuypers' Zeelandsuite (1977) for new work. He put the band together and, in the tradition Cuypers and his men, played at various Zeeland venues. As then, everything was recorded. On CD and (award-winning) DVD this time. Last May, I was...
Failing directors stay put, the Supervisory Board disqualifies itself. No other conclusion is possible after reading the counter-expertise commissioned by the province of Overijssel and carried out by Berenschot. The provincial millions intended to make the orchestra subsidy-independent have not only evaporated, but show a negative balance in every area. Every estimate was too optimistic,...
This text was initially spoken as a column commissioned by the Netherlands Chamber Choir (April 2015- premiere at Theatre De Harmonie Leeuwarden). Trip to Scandinavia is a variation on that in three parts. Now with animation. Also watch episodes 1 & 2.
In the 1970s, Reinbert de Leeuw stormed the popular charts with recordings of Erik Satie's early piano music. He managed to strike exactly the right chord with his ultra-rare performances of pieces like Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies. The albums sold like hot cakes and were awarded gold and platinum records. Two decades later, he recorded them...
Once in a while it resurfaces, the next idea. An ideal of the future: if some public talker were to eavesdrop a little more on musicians. What would take place? In the clay The same thing that has been audible in the Dutch musical landscape for a while now would happen: shuffling cultures. Taking inspiration from the rest of the...
In 1985, Unsuk Chin (Seoul 1961) won the Gaudeamus Music Prize with Spektra for three cellos, six years later she made her breakthrough with her Akrostichon-Wortspiel for soprano and ensemble composed for the Nieuw Ensemble. In 2004, she won the Grawemeyer Award, the world's most prestigious music prize; in 2007, she made a deep impression with her opera Alice in Wonderland. Tomorrow, Thursday 22 October.
On 20 November 1961, Michael Rockefeller was eaten by Peppie the cannibal. It happened on a muddy riverbank in the Asmat, a swamp area on the south coast of what is now Papua New Guinea. Shocking enough, that fact. Shocking also is that no one is officially aware of it. No perpetrators have ever been identified, no one has confessed, but there are...
For a moment on Friday, 16 October, it looked like Leila Josefowicz would give an encore, but it did not happen. The audience in the sold-out Concertgebouw had cheered her for minutes for her phenomenal rendition of Scheherazade.2, the second violin concerto (or third, if you include Dharma at Big Sur for six-string electric violin and orchestra) by John Adams, who himself led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra...
Eddy De Clercq, the Godfather of Dutch house and dance culture, wrote his autobiography, Let the Night Never End, together with Martijn Haas. A story about the birth of the DJ scene in the Low Countries, the rise of house music and nightlife with raging parties full of sex, dance, art, booze, swag and snuff. Against the backdrop of the advancing...
During the Seven Bridges Festival, from 29 September to 4 October, you could enjoy chamber music concerts in beautiful historic buildings in Amsterdam. One concert, on 1 October, we highlight. Compositions by Haydn and Beethoven resounded in Museum Geelvinck Hinlopen. This included a straining Haydn sonata on pianoforte grand piano and sparkling 'Volksliederen' by Van Beethoven by the expressive soprano Katharine...
THE Symphony Orchestra does not have a balanced budget for 2016. Without additional money from the province, it can no longer perform its core task, nor can it fulfil all the commitments it made earlier. That is the gist of the letter CDA deputy commissioner Hester Maij sent to Provincial Council, ahead of its meeting on 7 October. The subject of the letter: "progress business plan/redemption subsidy HET Symfonieorkest"....
It was initially spoken as a column commissioned by the Netherlands Chamber Choir (April 2015- premiere at Theatre De Harmonie Leeuwarden). Trip to Scandinavia is a variation on that in three parts. Now with animation. Also watch episode 1.... You can now log in to continue reading! Welcome to the Cultuurpers archive! As a member, you have access to...
In 1989, the Holland Festival placed composers from the Soviet Union at the centre. The music of Galina Ustvolskaya and Sofia Gubaidoelina hit like a bomb. The ladies proved to be here to stay, although they move at two extremes of our perception of sound. Ustvolskaya pounds her message into our eardrums with monomaniacal drive, Gubaidoelina intoxicates us with mysterious rustling and whispering sounds. For me,...
Early this year, it still looked like the monumental and striking Main Post Office on Utrecht's Neude would stay closed for good. There was even talk of a sale to a private individual who would build luxury flats in it, thus permanently obscuring the hall of the people, where many a Utrechter once cashed her cash cheques...
It is only a few months until Sinterklaas, so you would expect the Dutch people's rhyming muscles to be on edge again by now. But nothing could be further from the truth. During the Drongo Festival, an event on multilingualism in the Utrecht Jaarbeurs, MC Akwasi demonstrated this flawlessly. With his Dutch-language raps, he fits well into the current wave of...
Next Tuesday, 29 September, the 7 Bridges Festival begins in the heart of Amsterdam. It is an initiative of pianist Edward Janning, driving force behind the Erard Ensemble playing on authentic instruments. In five concerts, he will take us past the Amstelkerk on the Amstelveld, Museum van Loon and Museum Geelvinck on Keizersgracht, the Stadsarchief on Vijzelstraat and the Goethe Instituut...
Early this year, alt.country darling Ryan Adams posted a short snippet of a Taylor Swift cover on twitter and facebook. More was said to be on the way. A joke? A clever ploy to get the tens of millions of 'swifties' as Taylor's fans call themselves to listen to his music too? Neither, it turns out, now that Ryan Adams' 1989 is on the digital shelves: there will be...
Cimbalom and harmonium are not the first instruments you immediately think of when you think of classical music. Yet, the ever-adventurous Ludwig collective puts precisely these mavericks at the centre of two concerts, on Saturday 26 September at the AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert in Utrecht and on Sunday 27-9 at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam. In 1915, Igor Stravinsky and a friend visited a...
Listening to a short poem is sometimes hard work. This was evident during the Night of Poetry, held for the 33rd time on Saturday 19 September. At a poem that ends in brief toneless silence from the poet after four short sentences, the experts separate themselves from the amateurs in the audience. Clap quickly, before the next poem is over. Or.
Last weekend 250 years ago, nine-year-old Mozart arrived in The Hague with his parents and sister Nannerl. He arrived on 11 September 1765 to perform at the stadholder court. Due to illness, the Mozarts ended up staying for nine months and the young composer wrote several works here. Harpsichordist and conductor Jörn Boysen organised the festival Mozart in The...
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