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PODIUM ART

Anything for which people enter a stage.

Director sues own orchestra to death

It was big news. One orchestra is seizing the instruments of another. Only it doesn't add up. Just as much does not appear to be right in conductor Jan Willem de Vriend's letter in last Thursday's Volkskrant.

Because we have been closely following the orchestral feud between the Netherlands Philharmonic and the Netherlands Symphonic for some time, we already knew that De Vriend was not telling the truth with his statement that, legally speaking, it was now 2-2 between the two orchestras. It st...

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Biography Reinbert de Leeuw released today

Today, Leporello Publishers in Amstelveen published my long-awaited biography Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody, on which I worked for more than seven years. The book is on sale at several bookstores in Amsterdam and can be ordered through any bookstore in the Netherlands. When I attended a concert conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw in early 2005, I discussed with a number of... 

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Star. Five times. And then Symphony Orchestra.

Five-star Symphony Orchestra. This is how the Dutch Symphony Orchestra will be called next season. The former Orkest van het Oosten tried to become 'Dutch' but faced a lawsuit from the Philharmonic Orchestra, which was already 'Dutch'. 'Politics should get involved in the legal process. Because it can't go on like this. This is costing tons of money.' Says Harm Mannak.

[Tweet "Director throws symphony orchestra name up for grabs"]

The director of the former Orchestra of the Oo...

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Greco and Scholten divide attention between CCN Ballet Nationale de Marseille and ICK Amsterdam

Minister Filipetti has given the green light. Emio Greco and Pieter Scholten will indeed become the new artistic directors of CNN Ballet National de Marseille. A company with 30 dancers, 60 employees in total, in a building with 9 studios and a theatre hall. Who in the Netherlands still gets that done?

ICKamsterdam states in a press release that Greco and Scholten will split their time between CNN Marseille and ICK Amsterdam. The two institutions will work together, but there will be no...

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Emio Greco will 'maybe' lead CCN Ballet de Marseille.

[UPDATE 19-2-2014: meanwhile, the appointment is final]

This week, French media surfaced messages on that Emio Greco is the only candidate left to become Frédéric Flamand's successor at the CCN Ballet National de Marseille. However, the culture minister has yet to confirm the appointment, ICKamsterdam reported.

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Nederlandse Reisopera with a musical. With Sanne Wallis de Vries. In Royal Theatre Carré.

No, the company is not afraid of competition. Nor of cooperation, as witness the jubilantly received Fairy queen with Veenfabriek and Combattimento, the orchestra led until recently by Jan Willem de Vriend.

Combattimento? That orchestra was supposed to quit, wasn't it?

Indeed, it looked like that for a while when Jan Willem de Vriend announced his intention to retire from the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, but without its founder, the orchestra made a successful relaunch. Like the Reisope

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Peter Eötvös writes DoReMi for violinist Midori

For years he was a conductor who also composed, but after operas such as Le balcon and Angels in America Hungarian Peter Eötvös (1944) is now a composer who also conducts. On Friday 21 February, he leads the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn in the Dutch premiere of his Violin Concerto No 2, DoReMi, which he composed in 2012 for Japanese violinist Midori. - I spoke to him last week.

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World premiere of deceased Ten Holt

Tonight, Feb 14 honours the North Netherlands Orchestra at the Oosterpoort in Groningen Simeon ten Holt, who died in 2012, with the world premiere of his orchestral work Centri-fuga, which he completed in 1979. It has never been performed to this day and will be christened tonight by conductor David Porcelijn. After the interval, Ten Holt's magnum opus will also be heard Canto ostinato for four pianos, performed by Sandra and Jeroen van Veen, Fred Oldenburg and Irene Russo. Earlier this week, other pianists also performed it at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. 

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Reinbert de Leeuw defies limits of orchestra in Saturday Matinee

Reinbert de Leeuw turned seventy-five last September, but already in May the VPRO honoured him with three full-length broadcasts on Radio 4. Together with Aad van Nieuwkerk, I made a selection from his best recordings of Kagel, Ustvolskaya and Louis Andriessen, among others, about which I also let him speak. This was followed in September by a real Reinbert festival and his own magazine. The magazine not only highlighted him... 

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Ballet gala Dancers' Fund '79 photo Antoinette Mooy

6 Tips for a successful gala. (Ballet gala of the Dancers' Fund '79)

A gala should be festive. So the Ballet Gala of the Dancers' Fund '79 Foundation was festive. On Monday 20 January 2014, the fund's 17th gala took place at the DeLaMar theatre in Amsterdam, Joop van den Ende's glamorous ballroom.

A few tips for a successful gala.

1: Know who is giving you an award
The fund set up by Han Ebbelaar and Alexandra Radius thirty-five years ago is doing a huge service to the dance world. Almost every Dutch talent can be on...

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Toonkunst Choir not afraid of Peasant Wedding Stravinsky

Toonkunstkoor Amsterdam has had a name to live up to since its establishment in 1829. In earlier times, it was invariably on hand when the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Willem Mengelberg performed large-scale choral works. Although the choir still consists of amateurs and its ties with the illustrious orchestra have weakened, it still puts (very) demanding pieces on its desks. For instance, the... 

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Frighteningly predictable or provocatively good? The Player at De Nederlandse Opera

Prokofiev's The Player is an hour and a half of drama, then after the interval it really becomes opera. This is not down to the soloists, not to the direction or sets, and certainly not to the excellent Residentie Orkest conducted by Marc Albrecht. Perhaps the music and libretto are too ingenious, Prokofiev was too faithful to Dostoevsky's book to make it a real opera. And perhaps Andrea Breth is too good a stage director for this opera. "Watch the surtitles especially carefully," she told me just before the premiere, "so you don't miss anything."

Read More "Frighteningly predictable or provocatively good? The Player at De Nederlandse Opera

Red, Yellow and Blue (photo: Bob Karman)

Isabelle Beernaert is successful. Four reasons why it's not just down to SYTYCD.

The dance industry is not doing very well at all, people say. I spoke to a dance marketer who told me that venues are often only a quarter full. And that includes dance makers who have a  Oscar for dance have won. What does attract a lot of audiences are fairy tales. And Isabelle Beernaert.

What explains the success of this Belgian choreographer?

Read More "Isabelle Beernaert is successful. Four reasons why it's not just down to SYTYCD.

Figaro and The Fonz on a scooter in entertaining choreography for set pieces

It is the turnout of the evening: riding around on a scooter, barber Figaro gets involved in a crazy adventure in which Count Almaviva wants to snatch the beautiful Rosina from the hands of her guardian Doctor Bartolo. Three Bertas, meanwhile, literally tear Basilio's clothes off in an ingenious dance in front of three sets in which the action moves at lightning speed from inside to outside and... 

Hold on. Three Bertas?

Yep, director Laurence Dale dares to make Rossini '...

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Einojuhani Rautavaara makes flute dance on the wind

Tonight in Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra plays the Flute Concerto Dances with the Winds by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Originally, Peter Schat's Spring Concert was scheduled, but soloist Jacques Zoon chose to swap it for the Finnish composer's piece.

Son said: 'Peter Schat wrote his flute concerto for me in 1993 but after the premiere he was not happy with it and made a new version of it. He was happy with the performance though, maa...

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Figaro! Figaro! Figaro! Reisopera on tour with Rossini's masterpiece on order

'Give me a shopping list and I will set it to music,' the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini is said to have said. Perhaps apocryphal, but fitting for the man who composed faster than musicians could rehearse his scores. Where Wagner needed a lifetime for 14 operas, Rossini wrote triple that. In barely fifteen years.

Along with Bellini and Donizitti, Rossini is the master of bel canto opera, and these three composers wrote in more or less the...

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Everything, everything I know. Rest, rest then, rest you god. With Götterdämmerung, the Amsterdam Ring approaches its final end.

Forget the hours that preceded, don't think about the two hours to come. This is the moment. The Nibelungenhaat motif and the Hagen motif resound, but distorted. They clash. They cannot agree, We hear something vaguely triumphant, but at the same time threatening.

"Are you sleeping Hagen, my son?" sings Alberich.

Forget the long road the ring has travelled, forget how it will soon be acquired from the flames by the Reindaughters. In this moment, everything comes together.

Dreams Hagen...

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Young Talent Performance (Fugaz Floor)

Talent development new buzzword in dance world: 3 encouraging initiatives

The fact that it is difficult to get a job after graduation is also well known in the dance world. Therefore, partly at the government's insistence, companies are focusing on talent development. They also hope for a better connection with schools. Young dancers are now more likely to be on the front line of ballet: the theatre, and that is good news for audiences. Because the energy is fresh and the level has advanced considerably.

Whether a better connection between school and company is really going to solve all the problems is no...

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Rutte and Bosma don't do vision or substance and bend culture debate to their will

Culture debate 2013: Rutte and PVV shake hands. It was about Caro Emerald. About Zwarte Piet. And the classic: subsidy on opera tickets. And briefly about carnival. And it made all the news. Geenstijl. Radio 1,2,3 and 4. What else was the debate about? Um... no idea.

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Gergiev under fire. How a silly statement and half-hearted attempt at nuance worries Rotterdam. And exposes a bigger problem.

Protests abound again tonight at a concert conducted by Valery Gergiev, this time at London's Barbican. Many of the protesters are demanding that the orchestra emphatically distance itself from the Russian star conductor and speak out openly against gay legislation in Russia.

Read More "Gergiev under fire. How a silly statement and half-hearted attempt at nuance worries Rotterdam. And exposes a bigger problem.

From Dutch to National and vice versa. DNO and NRO give lesson on name change and collaboration

A joint press conference by two companies. In the post-Zijlstra era, that often does not bode well. A merger then seems obvious, especially when it involves the two largest opera companies in our country: De Nederlandse Opera and the Nationale Reisopera. Only now we have to turn that around: the Netherlands Opera will become the National Opera. And the building will be called National Opera and Ballet.

A logical name change given the administrative merger of the Music Theatre, The Na...

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It's raining at Amsterdam's Muziektheater. Armide impresses at De Nederlandse Opera.

It's raining at Amsterdam's Muziektheater.

When Crusader Renaud sings of an idyllic landscape half an hour after the performance begins, the curtain rises deliciously slowly. It adds a breathtaking dimension to the opera, which until then had been set on a small and sparse landscape on the front stage.

Read More "It's raining at Amsterdam's Muziektheater. Armide impresses at De Nederlandse Opera.
Bonnie Doets (photo: Antoinette Mooy)

Modern dance wins prizes at Dutch Dance Days

During the 16th edition of the Dutch Dance Days, several dance awards were presented: the 2013 Dutch Dance Days Prize, the Swans and the Dioraphte Dance Award. Respective winners are choreographer Giulio D'Anna, dancer Medhi Walerski, Club Guy & Roni for Midnight Rising, dancer Bonnie Doets of Scapino Ballet Rotterdam and Keren Levi with The Dry Piece.

This year's presentation of the Swans was broadcast live by NTR Podium. In a former industrial workshop in Maast...

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