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Oud of nieuw, klassiek of modern, minimaal of wereld. Pop. Tonaal en atonaal.

Composer Sander Germanus: 'Don't use drugs, listen to my music!'

'Don't use drugs, listen to my music!' This is what Sander Germanus (Amsterdam, 1972) writes confidently on his website. Words you don't immediately expect from a composer of modern-classical music. After all, in this context, many think of incomprehensible 'plink-plonk' rather than mind-blowing sounds. A refreshing sound from someone who designed his own method of composition, so-called 'horizontal harmony'. Ehm... What should we... 

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Eerste hulp bij vlammenzee. Rudolf Escher biedt troost met Musique pour l’esprit en deuil

Maandag 15 april 2019, deze datum staat voorgoed in ons geheugen gekerfd. Ik hield het niet droog bij de beelden van de allesverzengende brand in de Notre-Dame de Paris. Net als miljoenen anderen zat ik urenlang met ingehouden adem aan mijn schermpje gekleefd: dit mag niet waar zijn! Toen de structuur, de roosvensters en zelfs het orgel gered bleken sprongen… 

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CLASH is an ode to art

Art at a music festival often degenerates into decoration, but that certainly does not apply to Groningen's CLASH. 'We don't want art to be left out of the programming, but rather to be given full attention. We think it deserves that,' says organiser Milou de Boer. Fifty per cent of CLASH's programming budget goes to the arts, and that was too... 

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Photographer: Jan Sol

Why I will be nice to a beggar next time. (What Ilay den Boer can't manage)

As the weather was record beautiful, I walked from Amsterdam Centraal to Theater Bellevue on Sunday 17 February 2019. I was going to see the performance 'And so I shall go again.' going to see, by Ilay den Boer, someone I used to follow intensively but had lost track of since I am no longer a paid opinion seller. I considered the title of the performance as... 

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Kindermuziek gered, maar relatie tussen Noord Brabant en philharmonie zuidnederland blijft ‘koeltjes’

Wat er precies gezegd is, blijft vooralsnog onbekend. Dat er flink gesproken is, is duidelijk. In ieder geval is het resultaat helder: de Philharmonie Zuidnederland (die niet met hoofdletters geschreven wil worden) doet weer netjes mee met de kunsteducatieprojecten in Noord Brabant. De fanfare en ketelmuziek, waarmee het Limburgs-Brabantse fusie-orkest eerder aankondigde alle kindertjes, samen met drie kleinere jeugdtheaterinstellingen, in… 

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Brabant feud between orchestra and province comes at the expense of children, schools and small companies.

Cultural summit will take place Friday, February 1, 2019, at the North Brabant Provincial House. Reason: The 'Orkexit', or, the decision by the Philharmonie Zuid Nederland to cease all education activities in North Brabant with immediate effect. This not only deprives thousands of children of culture, but also puts a number of small youth theatre companies in dire financial straits. The Philharmonic, a merger orchestra, formed... 

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TivoliVredenburg during construction. Photo: Wijbrand Schaap

Without TivoliVredenburg, the improvement of the Utrecht station area would have come to nothing.

There is an artist café in Utrecht that few Utrechters know about. And I don't mean Theatercafé De Bastaard, where by now a whole generation of actors, filmmakers and writers come from, but the artists' foyer of TivoliVredenburg. I've eaten and hung out there a few times, as an embedded reporter of De Nacht van de Poëzie, when it's very late into... 

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PODCAST! Govert Schilling en Leoni Jansen vinden via Twitter troost in totale nietigheid. (Waarom ook Joni Mitchell onsterfelijk is)

Het begon allemaal met een tweet. Leoni Jansen, zangeres, stapte na een optreden in Winsum in de auto, en keek nog even om zich heen. Ze zag dat de sterrenlucht, ver van de grote lichten in de Randstad, mooi was. ‘Net aan de terugreis begonnen uit Winsum, mist laag bij de grond, heldere hemel. Op rechts denk ik Castor en… 

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Why you shouldn't miss 'Im wunderschönen Monat Mai' at Paradiso

On Wednesday 16 January, Reinbert de Leeuw will present his cycle Im wunderschönen Monat Mai at Paradiso. A unique opportunity to see him at work once more in his globally believed masterpiece. In 2003, he surprised friend and foe alike with this composition inspired by songs by Schumann and Schubert. Was that not swearing in church? Arnold Schoenberg had the Romanticism... 

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Petra Gerritsen goes to a concert almost every night off. 'You're with your own group. But how bad is that?'

‘Ik werk vijf avonden in de week en dus moet ik speciaal uitzoeken wanneer ik naar een concert kan. Soms neem ik er vrij voor. En dan zeggen ze wel: “hé, ga je alweer naar een concert?”, en dan zeg ik: “Natuurlijk ga ik weer naar een concert”. Maar ik vind het ook niet extreem.’ Petra Gerritsen is proces expert… 

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Fred Wondergem: 'There is always more that you don't see than what you do see.'

'When I look in the auditorium at a classical concert now, I do think: it's full now, but in 20 years eighty per cent will be dead. So the bottom has to be fed, and TivoliVredenburg does that well. They do it, for example, with Out of the Blue, which is a programme where you get great food and by a special host 

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Forty times a year to TivoliVredenburg: 'You get everywhere if you love music, eh.'

Peter Vossen says he experiences a live concert twice a week on average. Not just in TivoliVredenburg, although he visited there almost 40 times last year. 'I also see a lot of free concerts on the streets and in cafés, of course.' Jazz is his great love, but he also attends soul, funk, Latin or pop concerts. Regularly, he can be found 

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Three CDs you wouldn't have wanted to miss in 2018

The end of the year is approaching. So the lists fly around our ears again with 'most beautiful', 'best', 'most unforgettable', 'most moving'... fill in the blanks. I think compiling top-soaps is actually a typically male thing, but come on, I'm not that bad. Here are three CDs you wouldn't have wanted to miss this year - in no particular order. Louise Farrenc: Variations for Piano Biliana Tzinlikova,... 

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Why it's good that De Nederlandse Reisopera is coming to you with Die Tote Stadt.

In 1920, Erich Wolfgang Korngold experienced triumphs with his psychological opera Die tote Stadt. The work was performed in more than eighty cities at the time, with unanimous critical acclaim. The opera then disappeared from the stage for a long time but is nowadays performed again sparsely. So it is good that the Nederlandse Reisopera is bringing this almost forgotten piece back to the stage.... 

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Music publicist Maarten Brandt: 'For one note from Mahler's Ninth, I would give the gift of Shostakovich's entire oeuvre'

Sounding Alchemy, is the name of the chunky volume recently published by music publicist Maarten Brandt (1953). It has 715 pages, including illustrations and an extensive index. In 98 articles, Brandt unfolds his views on music and music programming. He dedicated the beautifully designed book to Marius Flothuis, whom he admired and who was programmer of the Concertgebouw Orchestra for many years. His heirs received a first copy during... 

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The 5 concerts you don't want to miss at November Music

The female composer, she continues to stir minds. My article following Mathilde Wantenaar's world premiere of Damocles unleashed a fierce discussion on Facebook. 'Why should women be given preferential treatment?" an angry man asked. 'All that matters to me is quality, not whether a piece of music was written by a man or a woman.' He got icky about the m/f discussion, which... 

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Jan van de Putte: ‘Mijn werk gaat over het veroveren van de muziek’

De Nederlandse componist Jan van de Putte (1959) overschrijdt steevast de grenzen van muziek. Aarzelende aanzetten, stilte, weidse gebaren en verkenningen van ons onderbewustzijn staan net zo vanzelfsprekend in zijn partituur als klinkende tonen. Afgelopen najaar verscheen zijn vierdelige liederencyclus op poëzie van Pessoa, waarin hij de Portugese dichter trefzeker laat stamelen. Op 8 november klinkt zijn nieuwste compositie, Cette… 

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Camilla de Rossi in NTRZaturdayMatinee: three centuries late premiere

After years, my ranting about the invisibility of female composers is starting to bear fruit. Thanks in part to the #MeToo movement, composing ladies are also finally being taken seriously and performed. The NTRZaturdayMatinee is even making them a spearhead of its programming this season. Last Saturday, it performed the world premiere of Salto di Saffo by Calliope Tsoupaki (1963). She composed this double concerto for pan flute, recorder... 

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Composer Jan van de Putte makes Fernando Pessoa stammer

Vier composities wijdde Jan van de Putte (1959) aan de poëzie van Fernando Pessoa. De integrale cyclus verscheen afgelopen najaar op de dubbel-cd Bamboleamos no mundo (‘we waggelen door de wereld’). De componist treft de kern van Pessoa’s ongrijpbare teksten met al even zinsbegoochelende muziek. Van de Putte is een van de origineelste stemmen in het Nederlandse muzieklandschap en tart… 

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Reinbert de Leeuw showered with honours on his 80th birthday

Accompanied by Asko|Schönberg, Katja Herbers sings parts from Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, Reinbert's adaptation of classics by Schubert and Schumann. The poignant lyrics get a witty twist in the last song. In 'Röslein auf der Heiden', the 'victim' is not the fragile little flower from the original but Reinbert himself. "Und der wilde Knabe brach Reinbert auf der Heiden; Reinbert wehrte... 

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Dusty Woo Hah! gets off to a slow start, but after that the audience is overwhelmingly eager

Het hiphopfestival Woo Hah! barstte bij de vierde editie, vorig jaar, bijna uit de voegen. Voor de vijfde editie week het uit naar de Beekse Bergen in Hilvarenbeek. We liepen er een dag rond. ‘Maak die cirkel groter, maak ‘m groter! Grooooter!’. Aan het woord de Nederlandse hitlijstbestormer Ronnie Flex. Ken je hem niet van zijn gigantische hits, dan wel… 

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The songs that slap you in the face rock hard in an unguarded moment

In 2016, I was unexpectedly struck by a Beatles classic. So what are the ingredients of perfect pop music? It is August 2016. I am standing with my friend at a ticket office in Liverpool, the British port city that is just as much an open-air museum. It is rather rubbed in on us that this city gave birth to The Beatles. In the harbour, tourists spend the night in a yellow submarine, equally... 

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Lakedance is well organised: 'You don't have to walk around lost, nice and handsome people everywhere, no complaints anywhere, clean toilets!'

"In the Netherlands, we are actually on holiday," Daphne (40) and Ilja (26) say with a laugh. They are travel experts, with Japan as their core destination. "I visit a few festivals every summer, but whether I'm really a festival-goer? Not so much, I think." Seven years ago, Daphne was last to Lakedance, now she is "getting up to age" and got to go for... 

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Amsterdam has the @HollandFestival. Ask yourself why that is. And whether that's ok.

Last week, while walking the dog, my neighbour Stefanie asked, "What is that anyway, this Holland Festival?", and I almost caught myself wearily going to explain that it was the most important performing arts festival the Netherlands and its environs and that everyone with a bit of education should know it. But I held back. And wondered: how... 

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