Things can change. In 1979, Iran changed from a Western-oriented secular state to a spiritual dictatorship, where Islamic leaders call the shots. Women must henceforth go through life veiled and music is banned as extremely sinful. Four decades later, three women founded the Iranian Female Composers Association. In America, though. 'Music is like a drug, those who feel...
German composer Helmut Lachenmann (1935) is a champion of evocative squeaks, creaks and crunches. Like John Cage, for instance, he hears music in unusual sources. Rarely is an instrument played the way it is written in the books. 'Making music with sounds is relatively simple and always somewhere modern,' he once said of this. Although he started his career as a choirboy counts...
Occasionally it chafes at Playful Arts, an intimate festival that brings play and art together. It's all about interaction, doing it yourself, experiencing it. Some visitors have to cross a threshold. But then something does happen. Those dancers must be in really good shape," I hear someone behind me mutter reverently. On the other side of the street, a man points to...
'I have knocked on the door of the Congress of Performing Arts a few times in recent years on my own initiative, really from the idea that we can do a lot more as venues in the Netherlands. But yes, every time I was there, people got enthusiastic, but does it stick?' Composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven is happy that he now serves as 'curator' of SPOT Live, the new...
The name of Sedje Hémon (1923-2011) will not immediately ring a bell with everyone. She was one of the first artists to work in a multidisciplinary way, basing compositions on her own paintings. Her painting scores were recently shown at Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens, but her music has not been performed for almost four decades. The Hague-based ensemble Modelo62 puts Hémon...
For new music, the primal performance is often also immediately the last time a piece is played. The scores await the archive or dusty drawer; recordings are nowhere to be found. David Dramm searches for these gems of stilted notes. He presents them at the Holland Festival Orphanage: three evenings of forgotten compositions from the rich...
Erik Voermans (1958) is one of those people who writes down what you think yourself, but would never air publicly. The music editor of Het Parool likes to pose as your unsuspecting neighbour's boy, watching the music world with amazement. Take the phenomenon of opera: 'That's when someone with a knife in his taas walks around for half an hour singing that he's going to die.' If he...
On 4 February, music journalist and musicologist Erik Voermans' latest book was presented: From Andriessen to Zappa. After twenty-five years of writing for Het Parool, Voermans has collected his conversations with the greats of modern-classical music in a chic edition. Paul van der Steen's detailed drawings inspire listening to the music discussed. The presentation in the Great Hall of the Muziekgebouw...
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...
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...
American-Italian voice artist Cathy Berberian (1925-1983) has gone down in history as 'the wife of Luciano Berio', the Italian composer with whom she realised such high-profile pieces as Circles, Sequenza III, Recital I for Cathy and Thema, Omaggio a Joyce. Yet they were married for only 14 years, from 1950 to 1964. Moreover, it is widely known that she had a large compositional share
Reviled and adulated. In perhaps the best episode in years, it revealed why Zomergasten is such a good TV programme. Thanks to guest Reinbert de Leeuw and host Wilfried de Jong. 5 quotes we need to show why.
After impressive retrospectives dedicated to John Cage (2012) and Edgard Varèse (2009), the Holland Festival this year put Venetian composer Luigi Nono in the spotlight. Under the title 'Trilogy of the sublime', the imposing Gashouder was the epicentre of three full-length concerts, short 'Nono interventions' sounded in the Rijksmuseum's subway, a two-day symposium was organised around Nono, and his widow Nuria set up an exhibition entitled 'Maestro di suoni i silenzi'.
On 8 September next, pianist, composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw hopes to turn 75 and this will be celebrated with a range of events. These include a three-day festival dedicated to him in The Hague and Amsterdam at the end of September, and next season he will be
We are live, from half past 10. We talk about a full week of Holland Festival, during which some highs and lows passed by: John Cage, pole dancing, Marilyn Monroe, you name it. Check back here, or watch directly on our youtube channel. We try to include all reactions.
Or: the familiar becomes utterly alien here. Or: embracing meaninglessness as the first principle. One hundred years after his birth, John Cage takes centre stage in HF weekend.
Ever since Reinbert de Leeuw played it in the fastest talk show on Dutch television, John Cage's 4'33" has been a well-known composition in our country. For exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the musician does not play a single note and the audience hears nothing but the ambient sounds.
[View the story "Opening Holland Festival 2012" on Storify] Opening Holland Festival 2012 On 1 June, the Holland Festival opened at Theater Carré. We were there, saw Platel's C(h)oeurs and tasted the atmosphere. Although it almost went wrong. This is what of it was witnessed on social media Storified by Cultureel Persbureau - Sat, Jun 02 2012 08:37:18...
Holland Festival, Julidans, IT's, Over 't IJ. End-of-season theatre is always strewn across Amsterdam. Between April and September, international performance offerings migrate from Utrecht (Springdance and Festival aan de Werf) via Amsterdam to Rotterdam (Internationale Keuze). If you want to experience something of contemporary, international dance, Springdance, HF and Julidans are the places to be. [For...
The International Film Festival Rotterdam celebrates its fortieth edition with a fitting XL programme. That Roman numeral XL not only indicates respectable age. It also says something about size: this fortieth also bursts with the intiguing programme, with screenings at no less than forty locations throughout the inner city of Rotterdam. Inside the festival walls is...
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