Anything for which people enter a stage.
Dutch composer Klaas de Vries (Terneuzen 1944) pairs Stravinskyian clarity with southern sensuality. He harbours a love for poets such as Pablo Neruda and Fernando Pessoa, and his work excels in recognisable melodies and rhythms. 'However innovative, to be communicative, music must always contain a traditional element,' he said. On 28 and 30 November, Asko|Schönberg will play...
Rule of Three is a piece for three dancers: Steven Michel, Julien Josse and Courtney May Robertson. NAH makes the music live, the lighting is by Jan Fedinger and there are some lyrics by Lydia Davis. Rule of Three was released last month at De Singel in Antwerp, and its Dutch premiere is today at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam....
On the fringes of Amsterdam Dance Event, I saw two music documentaries that expose why this genre is often problematic for the cinephile. Both films have their fine moments, but ultimately fall short for those who desire more than mere information transfer in television format. A sympathetic Goth Are 'friends' electric? is title and big hit (1979) by British synth-pop pioneer Gary Numan,...
9 Plates full of extraordinary sound that won't go unnoticed and unsung. Fatima Al Qadiri - Shaneera (Hyperdub) Durban taxi techno and Arab queer culture come together on this pumping EP. For, on this record, you hear how bare, cold drums chug outrageously under microtonal or game-like synth melody. Heavy in the bass and loose in the underbelly, Al Qadiri breaks gender pigeonholes....
Utrecht's Wolvenplein prison is sort of empty. Anyone who doesn't happen to have a conviction behind them themselves should go there for fun. I did so myself two years ago on an art project about the surveillance society. When I returned on Tuesday, 17 October 2017, for The Prison Monologues, the impression was still there. The...
High up in a posh flat, Lavalu (stage name of Marielle Woltring, Cleveland, Ohio, 1979) recently gave a try-out of her new programme at Eindhoven's FlatFest festival. For the first time now, she will tour without a band, solo with piano, in small venues where there is a good grand piano. On that Sunday afternoon in Brabant, it soon became clear that somewhere, something was...
World-renowned Dutch drummer Han Bennink celebrates his 75th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his ICP Orchestra at Utrecht's Le Guess Who? Festival (LGW). Time for a conversation with a diligent worker. All over the world, Han Bennink is famous. And for him, that whole world is his playground, literally. Bennink started drumming at an early age. Pots...
For centuries, scientists have seen connections between music and the ordering of the universe. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra took this as the starting point for its concert on 19 October in the Horizon series. A 'polyphonic cosmos' is being realised in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam. Peter Eötvös composed the organ concerto Multiversum for this, Rozalie Hirs wrote 'parallel world [breathing]'. Eötvös' piece is experiencing...
That you can put a shoe on. But also not. That it doesn't really make much sense to put a shoe on, if you will take it off later in the day anyway. Why bother? Why live? Recognisable? For anyone who has ever been in a slump, yes. Theatre group Kassys, most recently a worldwide hit with 'Total Eclipse of...
Jetse Batelaan has spent pretty much this entire century making the most extraordinary theatre in the world. At least, of my world. Often with very few words, always with a great sense of bare aesthetics and usually sympathetic with a weird twist halfway through. His latest masterpiece is an adaptation of Thea Beckman's Crusade in Jeans. Though we need at least three quarters of...
Director Ivo van Hove chose the 'books of little souls' cycle as the conclusion of the Couperus triptych at Toneelgroep Amsterdam. He previously directed 'Silent Power' (2015) and 'The things that pass' (2016). Dramaturg Koen Tachelet adapted Couperus' Magnum Opus for the theatre. The books 'The Little Souls', 'Late Life', 'Twilight of Souls' and 'Sacred Knowing' together form the cycle 'The Books of...
The Great Hall of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is pitch dark. Then a spotlight flashes on the first side balcony on the right. There, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Maria Milstein, Rosanne Philippens and Jacobien Rozemond play three movements from Telemann's Concert for four violins. They end in a freeze, after which the whisper-soft, fragile tones sound from Treasures by György Kurtág. We only see...
NDT 1 concludes its triptych Side B: Adrift with Franck Chartier's new The Hidden Floor. After the performance, I literally lose my way. Different worlds "Franck?", I call out. In the rain, an unremarkable man approaches me. Yes, comes the reply from under a cap. It's Franck Chartier, on his way to the studio in...
Bis an der Welt ihr Ende is the poetic title of a CD by Per-Sonat featuring German songs from the time of the Reformation. This ensemble of mezzo-soprano Sabine Lutzenberger focuses on music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This CD follows the development of German song from church reformer Martin Luther to the composer Johann Hermann Schein....
To his own dismay, Simeon ten Holt became famous as the composer of a single piece: Canto ostinato for four pianos. This composition immediately struck a chord at its world premiere in 1979. It still sounds just about every day somewhere in the world, in all possible line-ups. From 12 to 14 October, the Noord Nederlands Orkest will present a...
Bird sounds are heard from all sides. A song, a chirp. Call and response. The sky is full of them. Yet it's not birds you hear, but five strings. The acoustics of the Amstelkerk are exploited in their best qualities. Creating programmes in a small setting, with a personal choice around a theme. This is what cellist Lidy Blijdorp uses to...
The Rolling Stones will play in the Netherlands again on 30 September and 15 October. NRC on Friday gave five reasons to go to their concerts. I have been a big fan for decades; for years I collected obscure recordings, read books and queued up for tickets before dawn. Now I no longer go, and here's why. 1. Slow...
Completely unexpectedly, bass-baritone Pieter Vis (1949-2017) died on Thursday 28 September, aged 68. A brain haemorrhage proved fatal to him. Just that morning, he had shared a post on Facebook from the radio programme De Ochtend van Vier. - Under his pseudonym Pyoter Riba, the Russian translation of his name. Since he discovered this social medium, he showed himself to be an enthusiastic user
Nationale Toneel Theatre is working on its mission to bring society to the stage. The Nation, that insane marathon with Romana Vrede about a disappearance in the Schilderswijk neighbourhood, and Mark Rietman, will be ready this autumn. Anyone who thought it was time for another slice of tedious retro hag comedy after that is wrong. We do have a classic coming up in...
A field littered with landmines. This is what life feels like sometimes. In waiting rooms, for example. Uncomfortable situations. What should you say to each other? Timorous glances shoot past each other. Hidden tension pounds against your muscles. Everyone is afraid of everyone else. And of themselves. Fobia by Davide Bellotta is one of three works with which young choreographers present themselves in the programme
Speaking of diversity, within the dominantly white theatre audience, it is also full of bubbles. Over the past two weeks, for instance, I have just let it dawn on me how little overlap there is between the audiences of the two art theatres in my city, Utrecht. At least: for a while I sort of immersed myself in the world of...
On Thursday 19 October, Peter Eötvös will conduct 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...
I actually experienced it once! In the middle of a theatre performance, an elderly lady, who had nothing to do with the story, walked onto the stage. She must have got lost in the interval and ended up behind the wings through a door that was accidentally open. While the actors were engaged in a deeply serious Hamlet, she came laconic
This week, two things already became clear about the Dutch theatre world. One: the topic of diversity is finally really on the map and two: the theatre world, however small, is hopelessly divided. During Het Theaterfestival, there were two debates/ meetings/ symposiums on the lack of diversity in theatre. One on Monday, the other on Thursday. Bit much in one...
From the ominous clarion notes at the beginning to the whisper strings dying into nothingness at the end, everything sounds like clockwork. Yet Michele Mariotti is conducting Giuseppe Verdi's La forza del destino for the first time. He makes his debut at De Nationale Opera with this rarely performed opera. Mariotti came, saw and conquered. He seems to be a born Verdi interpreter, from...
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