Dear outgoing Prime Minister Rutte, Dear Mark, In my capacity as a self-employed person working in the performing arts, I am writing you this letter. This is my first letter ever about the situation of the cultural sector, culminating in corona time. First by way of introduction: we met when I played a Scarlatti sonata especially for you at the TV programme Podium Witteman, and also...
This year, November Music not only has a house composer, but also a house ensemble, the New European Ensemble. Naturally, the Hague club will play in the opening concert with Seung-Won Oh's Bosch Requiem. And, of course, they present a portrait concert with greatest hits by composer-in-residence Kaija Saariaho.
Pièce de résistance will be the brand new Reconnaissance (Rusty Mirror Madrigal) for choir, percussion and double bass. Saariaho composed it commissioned by November Music and the Donaueschinger Musiktage. The first performance was scheduled at the German festival, which, however, was also cancelled. - A stroke of luck for November Music.
'Had I not possessed three things unrelated to music, I would have perished early on from loneliness and disillusionment,' wrote Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) at 60. Those three things were: 'Iron health, a distinct fighting spirit and a modest but independent income.' Whereas women in the nineteenth century were condemned to compose
Dutch composer Bart Visman (1962) has already written many wonderful works of his own, but makes his debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with an orchestration of 'Ondine'. This is the first movement from Maurice Ravel's three-part piano cycle Gaspard de la nuit. It is the prelude to an integral orchestration, to be premiered next season. 'I am of the same...
Being creative on demand? That's impossible, you would think. Yet it is the reality for composers and artists who work on commission. Mathilde Wantenaar (1993) therefore got acute choice stress when the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra asked her for a new piece. She was just working on a commission from De Nationale Opera. 'I felt like a rabbit in the...
'I always draw out my characters before I start composing. They are inspired by people I see on the street, personalities I admire, details that make someone special... I usually focus on one specific aspect of a character, a dominant mood that I then highlight in my composition.' Born in 1990 in Istanbul, Meriç Artaç was already...
The Holland Festival, with its ample offerings, is sometimes its own competitor. For instance, I missed Turan Dokht and the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande because I was at aus LICHT. To attend a performance of Debussy's only opera, I had to pass up Abd Al Malik's concert. - Cultural choice stress, frustrating on the one hand but a blessing on the other. Was it...
Crash Park - La vie d'une île (2018) by French director Philippe Quesne performs 19th-century values in their 21st-century elaboration. The elitist explorer has become a modal tourist, moving in well-organised groups to every corner of the world in search of ultimate experiences, provided they don't get in the way of a return ticket western...
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 his admired Marius Flothuis, programmer of the Concertgebouw Orchestra for many years. His heirs received a first copy during...
After years, my ranting about the invisibility of female composers is beginning 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...
Although the press picks it up only sparsely, not only the NTRZaterdagMatinee pays much attention to Dutch composers. Indeed, they are also well represented in the AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert (formerly De Vrijdag van Vredenburg). In 2014, for instance, Joey Roukens wrote The building of the temple to mark the reopening of TivoliVredenburg. Two years later, the season opened with Atlantis by Robin...
To have an Ode to Debussy begin with one of his last compositions is a fine choice. Cellist Lidy Blijdorp and pianist Julien Brocal perform this programme to mark the centenary of the composer's death. Last strength Debussy suffered from cancer for the last six years of his life. This disease made his life unbearably hard. Yet three years later he...
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is coming to our country. On Monday 9 April, they will give a concert in TivoliVredenburg Utrecht under their young chief conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. They will play music by Wagner, Debussy and Beethoven, a fairly standard programme at first sight. But fortunately, Lithuanian Gražinytė-Tyla brings a piece by her compatriot Raminta Šerkšnytė. Who wrote Fires...
The greater the resistance to be overcome, the greater the achievement. This wry wisdom is expressed in the Russian narrative concert 'Living under a tyrant'. Cellist Lidy Blijdorp adds another beautiful, personal and original episode to her Cello 020 series with this programme around the life story of composer Shostakovich. She performs in this concert together with...
Poldowski re-imagined is the name of French Ensemble 1904's latest CD. Poldowski who? Well, like many of her colleagues, this Polish-British composer (1879-1932) is all but forgotten. Her name, too, is problematic. Born the youngest daughter of violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski, her official name was Irène Régine Wieniawski. However, she published her first compositions as Irène Wieniawska. After...
Although Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) is considered one of the most important French composers of the early 20th century, her music is rarely performed. On Friday 10 November, Du fond de l'abîme will be heard in the AVROTROS Friday Concert. A godsend, because this setting of psalm 130 is of a throat-splitting beauty. Boulanger completed the piece in 1917, a year before her death. American conductor James...
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...
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...
Smoothly they descend the stairs of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Lucas and Arthur Jussen are dressed to kill. With their fussy-cut, see-through costumes, they have already won their first battle before they have even played one note of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mantra. Not only in their outfits, but also in their quirky playing, the young pianists show guts. Lovely, such a...
Recently, Lidy Blijdorp (* 1986) took over the cello of well-known cellist Anner Bijlsma (* 1934). It was his wish for the instrument to be played by her from now on. Via the Netherlands Music Instruments Fund (NMF), the instrument came to her. The maker of this cello is not known. However, it is certain that it originated from...
He would have turned 91 on 26 March, but died Tuesday night, 5 January, in his hometown of Baden-Baden. Pierre Boulez was the last surviving composer of the group that changed the direction of music after WWII. His fellow maestros preceded him: Karlheinz Stockhausen died in 2007, Luciano Berio in 2003, Karel Goeyvaerts in 1993 and...
This year was a celebration of two composers from two seemingly completely different planets. The Estonian Arvo Pärt (b 1935) turned eighty, the Frenchman Pierre Boulez (b 1925) ninety. One is unparalleled among a wide audience for his eloquent 'tintinnabulist style', the other is applauded by a select group of insiders for his avant-garde compositions, which the general public, however, experiences as incomprehensible...
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...
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....
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