Old or new, classic or modern, minimal or world. Pop. Tonal and atonal.
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...
He had gone out to smoke a cigar that evening, 15 September 1945, but curfew had already begun. As he lit his smoker, a US soldier subitively fired three bullets. Fatally hit, 61-year-old Anton Webern stumbled into the home of his daughter and son-in-law, where he collapsed and died. The bullet was probably...
This year, too, the Gaudeamus Award went to an Eastern European. In 2014, Ukrainian Anna Korsun won the coveted competition for composers under 30; this year, the €5,000 prize goes to Russian composer Alexander Khubeev* (1986, Perm). This was announced on Sunday 13 September in TivoliVredenburg by Henk Heuvelmans, for many years the driving force behind...
'Rachmaninov's melodic gift is impressive and makes the composer very popular'. This is how Valery Gergiev pithily sums up the quality of Rachmaninov's music. The Gergiev Festival that centred around this composer this weekend emphatically sticks to the popular works: the piano concertos and symphonies . Yet it omits many compositions that could have given these works more framework....
Actually, Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) was a bit of an oddity, an anachronism. He bit into the composition style of his great example Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893. When contrasting Rachmaninov with some of his contemporaries (Dmitri Shostakowich, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Strawinsky and overseas Charles Ives, George Antheil and Edgard Varèse), it is only right to notice...
From Thursday 17 September onwards, Maastricht will be dominated by four days of arts festival Musica Sacra. Started in 1983 as the European Festival of Religious Music, other art disciplines are now also presented, in atmospheric churches and other historical venues. This year's theme is 'The Way', loosely inspired by the pilgrimage route to pilgrimage site Santiago de Compostela, with the central question of whether...
New: a veritable serial in words and pictures. Trip to Scandinavia was initially performed as a spoken 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.
Next weekend, from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ celebrates its tenth anniversary with a jam-packed festival three-day event. From a cruise on the IJ with music by John Cage, a sleep concert by bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, a world premiere by Dutch Composer Willem Jeths, to a musical picnic in the entrance hall. No fewer than eight...
Just after the end of the Early Music Festival, the Gaudeamus Music Week, the Mecca of cutting-edge notes for seventy years, starts in Utrecht. Five nominated composers under thirty compete for the coveted Gaudeamus Award, previously won by now established composers such as Unsuk Chin, Yannis Kyriakides and Michel van der Aa. For the second year, the...
There is turmoil in the performing arts. This is because Culture Minister Jet Bussemaker has implemented a couple of motions from the opposition. The minister has also ignored the advice of the Council for Culture for a more balanced budget distribution. So, after much agitation on social media, we received a letter on Friday 28 August 2015. From the festivals, addressed to the minister,...
On Tuesday afternoon, 25 August, Hans van Beers (Eindhoven, 1941) passed away. He was an important figure in our cultural life, his curriculum is seemingly endless. Among other things, he was alderman of culture in Den Bosch, co-founder of Pinkpop, chairman of the Mondriaan Fund, interim director of the Stedelijk Museum, director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the VPRO and the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music, board member...
Utrecht is fast overtaking Amsterdam as cultural capital. Centrally located and easily accessible by train, bus, car, bicycle or on foot, and blessed not only with a host of beautiful churches but also with the imposing TivoliVredenburg, it attracts more and more music lovers to its city centre. For over three decades, it has hosted the Festival of Early Music,...
She welcomes the audience to her small wedding chapel in juicy American. 'My name is Joe,' she says with a mischievous smile, 'I can't help it, my father was having a good time when he chose my name.' Today, in The Long and Winding Road by the Volksoperahuis, Manoushka Zeegelaar Breeveld will play a couple plucked from the audience 'in the...
Bathed in sweat and applauded by audience and musicians alike, conductor Antony Hermus leaves the stage on Sunday 17 August after the final concert of the NJO Muziekzomer. He has every reason to be pleased, as the performance of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben at Theatre Orpheus in Apeldoorn sparked that it had a nature. The tricky piece jumps into six...
Thursday 20 August sees the start of the annual Orlando Festival again in Kerkrade. Established in 1982 by cellist Stefan Metz, this event has been luring young musicians to Rolduc Abbey for over three decades to train in musical practice. Named after the then renowned Orlando Quartet, the festival traditionally pays close attention to strings, but other instruments are not forgotten either....
While the young musicians of the NJO Symphony Orchestra emit fearsome war sounds, behind them we see two toddlers frolicking uninhibitedly across the Veluwe moor. Moving and at the same time oh so appropriate, because although Carl Nielsen composed his overwhelming Fourth Symphony during the First World War (1914-16), he remained convinced of the good in man. He christened it Det Uudslukkelige, which means as much...
When I went on holiday four weeks ago, the European Union was anxiously awaiting the Greek government's response to its latest ultimatum on the terms of a new money loan. After being offline for over a month, I read that it is still muddling through, with yet another 'ultimatum' expiring on 20 August. Ah well.
Three days of classical music among the trees and cows. Festival Wonderfeel presented a unique classical music festival last weekend from 24 to 26 July, under the smoke of 's-Graveland. Top musicians from home and abroad gave dozens of concerts. Lectures were given and, as befits a festival, there was also plenty to eat, drink and...
Brilliant marketing strategy: call your new record Star Wars at the time that trailer is the most viewed ever, put a cute cat on the cover, temporarily give the album away for free and then let social media do the work. 'If you can't beat them, join them' squared away. And meanwhile merrily mixing old Bowie with Captain Beefheart with a...
The CD Sax avec Elan! is the latest project by the ever enterprising Amstel Quartet. The four saxophonists made their name with impeccable and inspired performances of contemporary music, but do not shy away from the beaten track. For this CD, they joined forces with French chansonnier Philippe Elan. To my pleasant surprise, the...
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