Old or new, classic or modern, minimal or world. Pop. Tonal and atonal.
The fall of Muslim enclave Srebrenica on 11 July 1995 is still occupying minds. On Saturday 11 July next, the Democratic Europe Association will commemorate the genocide of more than seven thousand men who were under the protection of a Dutch UN battalion, with a symposium and a commissioned composition by Pablo Escande, The Killer and the Piano Player. Immediately after the shocking event, the...
Concert & Congress hall De Doelen in Rotterdam will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. That is, 50 years ago, the current venue was festively opened. The building by architects Kraaijvanger and Fledderus was the first major public building of the reconstruction after German bombs destroyed the city on 10 May 1940. However, its name goes back much longer. The at...
After an hour, I looked at my watch - barely 10 minutes had passed. On paper, the programme Baroque Revisited by Soloist Ensemble Kaleidoskop at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ on 18 June looked exciting. Works by Baroque composers are forged into one by German composer Sarah Nemtsov (b 1980), interwoven with modern sounds and...
Get lost festively. In what new building is it still possible? It is possible in Utrecht's TivoliVredenburg, the building that has now been officially open for a year. Saturday 13 June marked that anniversary with a repeat of the opening party. Because that was such an unexpected success. During that repeat, it once again became clear why: TivoliVredenburg gives new meaning to the term festival. It is...
'Urbo Kune' is esperanto for 'common city'. Klangforum Wien presents 24 hours of contemporary music and ideas today at the Muziekgebouw, focusing on the future of Europe and ideas about the ideal capital of the United States of Europe. https://vimeo.com/129976101 At 12:12 today afternoon, the event started with an incomprehensible statement from the roof. Mayor Van der Laan, Arnon Grunberg, Francine Houben exchange...
The first weekend of June, something exciting is happening in The Hague. For adventurous men. By adventurous men. On a stage. By music-making men that is. Mr Cello One of these men I once saw (sometime in the nineties in Groningen) going wild on his instrument. With an almost bare bow, missing a string, but...
THE Symphony Orchestra is as good as bankrupt. The 2014 figures show that. So it is total nonsense that responsible minister Jet Bussemaker reported in her answers to questions by MP Jacques Monasch less than a month ago that the orchestra was well within the own income norm of 21.5%. Not only did she already use incorrect figures in her answers, now...
Stars, we don't really do that in the Netherlands. Our ground level does not allow diva behaviour. In our lowlands, you get a plus if you have stayed so nicely ordinary despite your success. Even if you stand in the Arena with your songs, like the Toppers, this weekend. How different it is in Istanbul. There, you are allowed to be shamelessly famous. Like.
When you think of Carel Kraayenhof, you don't immediately think of a young squatter orating about Karl Marx in circle discussions. Yet protest resides in the musician, just like in the tango. This becomes apparent when the interview gets off to a brisk start.
In The Loom of Mind, Icelandic folk singer Mugison, his bosom friend Pétur Ben, and Flemish baroque ensemble B.O.X. join forces. What does that sound like: melancholic Icelandic blues with 17th-century instruments? Like a stand-up storytelling concert performance? Or like a drunken panda who wants to have a game? How did you find each other? Pieter Theuns, lutenist and founder of B.O.X.: "I found Mugison...
Dutch composer Theo Verbey (Delft 1959) writes music of lush tonal beauty, in which the achievements of centuries of musical tradition resound. He made his name with works such as Triad (1991) for orchestra and Expulsion (1988) for large ensemble, and with orchestrations of pieces by composers such as Modest Mussorgsky and Alban Berg. For the closing concert of De Vrijdag van Vredenburg, he wrote Traurig wie...
For the sixth time in its history, the Tour de France will start in the Netherlands: on Saturday 4 July, the cyclists will start their three-week war of attrition under the Dom in Utrecht . A day earlier, the Britten Youth String Orchestra kicks off its own Tour de France, in home town Zwolle. In one week, the young musicians will give seven concerts in La...
Monday 18 May 2015 he will be cremated in Utrecht: Ton Hartsuiker, tireless champion of new music in our country. In recent years, his health was ailing; he would narrowly miss his 82nd birthday. He was active as pianist, music educator, conservatory director, administrator and radio presenter. Even after his retirement in 1998, he did not consider quitting his...
Yep, I'm running behind, because just now I finally saw (in parts) the King's Day concert! But hey, good music has no expiry date and for now this concert will be online for a while. What a party! Some of my favourite musicians participated. Faithful readers of Culture Press know that violinist and composer Oene van Geel is definitely one of them. He brought along Zapp4...
Ton de Leeuw lived in Paris for the last decade of his life and studied with Olivier Messiaen in his younger years. On 21 May, Cappella Amsterdam will present four of his French-language choral works in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The programme also includes works by his student and friend Daan Manneke and the young French composer Laurent Durupt....
There was once a celebrity (pianist, composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw), a biographer (Thea Derks) and a riot. De Leeuw was against the publication of his biography Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody and made no secret of it. In the TV programme Zomergasten (Summer guests), he even dismissed the dissertation-like standard work as an almost endearing puff piece. Meanwhile...
The power of data The arts sector in general is little 'tech savvy'. Sure, nobody can do without a website and a Twitter account will hardly be lacking anymore either. But there are few examples of groups, theatres or artists making the most of the power of digital. Setting up a good 'client relations management system' (crm) with profiles of all visitors or buyers, to keep those...
Is that possible? Picture-less film? Sure, just see-or better-listen to Chapman for President by the Eef van Breen Group on 2 May during LISFE: a cinematic sound project based on a personal story. An encounter with political refugee Chapman gave trumpeter, singer & composer Eef van Breen new eyes, ears and the idea for this film without images....
On Sunday afternoon 26 April, I was a member of the press jury at the final of the Prinses Christina Competition in Lucent Danstheater in The Hague. Definitely not a punishment, as all six finalists performed at top level, no matter how young and inexperienced they were. Time and again, the organisation proves that all the gloom about the future of classical music is nonsense: this year too, there were...
Only those who live in a locked hut on the moors will have missed the fact that jazz drummer John Engels will soon turn 80. He has been a guest on television programmes like VPRO Vrije Geluiden and the special jazz edition of De Wereld Draait Door, and will be honoured on his birthday 13 May with a celebratory concert at the Bimhuis. Also published was the small-scale biography...
Mea culpa and action 'It only happens when you fall on your face.' This quote by artist Job Koelewijn in De Volkskrant has hung on my toilet door for years. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a journalist is not checking facts. And OuiJAYes that mistake I have thus made: this writing creative did not check the facts....
Festival Rumor 80, an irregular regular in Utrecht at three different locations each time, will show choreographer Marc Vanrunxt's new work Real, So Real this Friday at Theater Kikker. Starting point is Three Voices, a 1982 composition by Morton Feldman. A wonderful Flemish collaboration by Kunst/Werk and ChampdAction. Dancer Marie De Corte and singer Els Mondelaers shine in Real, So Real. The...
HET Symfonieorkest's financial problems have not gone unnoticed. Regional newspaper Tubantia reported last Monday that PvdA MP Jacques Monasch had minister Jet Bussemaker (also PvdA) summoned to the Lower House. In that report, Monasch passes with seven-mile boots advice, applications and decisions that have already been made or are yet to come, and immediately reports that a symphony orchestra will continue to be...
Why a fun house festival still haunts my mind weeks after the fact. Let me tell you: OuiJaYes I was looking forward to it. Fancy space. Freedom. So it made perfect sense that I went to Jazz in de Kamer Leiden at the end of March. I could choose from various itineraries with groups and musicians like Artvark, Jeroen van Vliet, Ruben Hein, Ntjam Rosie. I chose...
Wednesday 8 April kicks off the fourth edition of the biennial World Minimal Festival at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. For five days, the capital will be dominated by the immensely popular music movement, which invariably attracts packed halls. Several parts of this instalment are already sold out, including the opening concert with special guest Terry Riley. There are still...
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