Russian Lera Auerbach (1973) does not shy away from big challenges. And that is an understatement. Most recently, she made a big impression with her cycle Goetia 72: in umbra lucis. She composed this setting of the names of 72 demons for the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the string quartet Quatuor Danel. A CD of 72 Angels: in splendore lucis, in which...
'Everything I make stems from feeling, from being touched', Joost Kleppe (1963) once said about his music. That sensibility is often triggered by poetry and his oeuvre therefore includes many vocal works. His lyrical, rhythmically varied pieces regularly appear on the desks of both professional and amateur choirs. With his appealing style, Kleppe follows in the footsteps of illustrious composers,...
Monday 15 April 2019, this date is forever etched in our memory. I couldn't keep dry at the images of the all-consuming fire at Notre-Dame de Paris. Like millions of others, I sat glued to my screen for hours with bated breath: this cannot be true! When the structure, the rose windows and even the organ turned out to be saved, I jumped...
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...
In 2014, the world premiere of The Rise of Spinoza by Theo Loevendie received an enthusiastic reception at the NTRZaterdagMatinee. Rightly so, as Markus Stenz steered the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Groot Omroepkoor, vocal soloists and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf through the colourful one-act aptly. The live recording was recently released on CD, allowing the opera to reach an international audience as well. The now 87-year-old Loevendie...
'Love is poison' Mortimer sings to the king in the first scene of Lessons in Love and Violence. The military adviser denounces his relationship with Gaveston, whom he showered with favours while his subjects went hungry. 'Don't bore me with the price of bread' ripostes the king. Rather than worry, he treats his lover to poetry and music...
No love without power relations. And certainly not when that love takes place in a royal bedroom. That bedchamber is now the setting for a tragic love triangle between a king, his lover and his wife in Lessons in Love and Violence, the third opera by English composer Georges Benjamin and playwright Martin Crimp. The Elizabethan drama Edward II...
Leonard Bernstein would have turned 100 this year. The AVROTROS Friday Concert puts his most popular piece, West Side Story, on the programme on Saturday (!) 26 May. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play the electrifying music full of ecstatic melodies and vital dances live at the integral screening of the original 1961 film. The whole thing is conducted by the young American conductor
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...
Performing arts policy greatly determines what can be seen and heard on Dutch stages. It underpins government funding of theatre and music. This policy pays a lot of attention to the quality of performances, but it hardly discusses the choice of pieces played, let alone what kind of repertoire landscape...
Sofia Gubaidoelina has become a true audience favourite in our country. She is also a welcome guest in broadcasting series. The AVROTROS Friday Concert, for instance, brought the Dutch premieres of Glorious Percussion (2011) and O Komm, Heiliger Geist (2016). Friday 23 March will see the first Dutch performance of her Triple Concerto for bayan, violin and cello. The piece is dedicated to...
Although Estonia is almost 4,000 square kilometres larger than the Netherlands, it has barely more inhabitants than the province of Utrecht. For centuries, superpowers such as Denmark, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Poland disputed rule over this country on the Baltic Sea. Indeed, its geographical location made it an important link between East and West. It was not until 1918 that a state of its own was declared, but...
At the end of the nineteenth century, Western music gradually began to come apart at the seams. Composers used more and more dissonances so that the familiar tonality hardly fitted into its shell. From a constant desire for even more expression, the orchestra was expanded with ever-newer instruments. This led to monster productions such as Gustav Mahler's 'Symphony of the Tausend', with more than a thousand...
The most recent achievement of Russian-Swedish composer Victoria Borisova-Ollas (b. 1969) is Dracula. This opera based on Bram Stoker's book of the same name premiered at Royal Opera Stockholm in October 2017. A 'colourful and highly atmospheric musical score', it included 'one of the most emotional scenes in the history of Swedish opera', wrote one critic. Seven years earlier,...
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...
Traditionally, the AVROTROS Friday Concert marks the festive end of the season with a joint concert by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Groot Omroepkoor. On 9 June, American star conductor David Robertson leads them through Maurice Ravel's compelling ballet Daphnis et Chloé in the final concert. In addition, the orchestral work L'Ascension by his compatriot Olivier Messiaen and a selection of...
In this period before Easter, Johann Sebastian Bach's Passions seem almost inescapable. But the alternatives are on the rise. Last week, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Groot Omroepkoor presented two highly successful new Passions. Alternative passion Tomorrow bring the AVROTROS Friday Concert Deus Passus by German composer Wolfgang Rihm. It will be performed by the Groot Omroepkoor and the Radio Philharmonic ...
Once built for a Belgian dance bar, The Busy Drone came to the Netherlands in the 1960s. Publisher De Bezige Bij placed the barrel organ at its stand at the annual book fair in the RAI in 1968, which explains its striking name. Five years later, director Edy de Wilde purchased the instrument for his Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it remained until...
Friday 23 September will open the new season of the AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert with the world premiere of Atlantis by Robin de Raaff. He composed this 50-minute piece commissioned for this broadcasting series, for the Groot Omroepkoor and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, augmented by solo soprano and solo baritone. The text is largely taken from the poem of the same name by American Hart Crane,...
Last weekend, more than 500 monuments in the Netherlands could be visited for free during the annual Open Monumentendag. Each year, this special day has a theme, this year it was 'Icons and Symbols'. After a thorough restoration, Hilversum's Studio 2 in the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep also opened its doors after 85 years. During the same week, a pop-up exhibition...
When you go to a concert, you think about the music, the ensemble, the soloist and/or the conductor. Maybe you look up something about the composer but you never think about the programmer who made the concert possible. Astrid in 't Veld is someone who thinks about the range of concerts on offer years in advance in order to help you with...
Last Wednesday night, 27 July, Einojuhani Rautavaara died at his home in Helsinki, following complications during an operation. Aged 87, he was widely regarded as the uncrowned heir apparent to Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), who wrote his last notes around 1930.
The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Groot Omroepkoor should focus more on broadcasting and less on concert practice. So says the Council for Culture in an opinion released today on the policy plan of the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Foundation (SOM), which includes the choir and orchestra.
While the Council is very appreciative of the Saturday matinee, are the two other series the Foundation is bringing
Last Sunday, 24 April, clarinetist George Pieterson died at his home in Amsterdam, aged 74. 'George was an iconic player with a big musical heart,' says his former student Frank van den Brink. 'He invariably went full steam ahead and whichever recording you listen to, his playing is always remarkable. You didn't necessarily have to put up with his...
Joey Roukens (Schiedam, 1982) studied composition at Rotterdam Conservatory and took private piano lessons with Ton Hartsuiker. Since graduating in 2006, he has been able to reach a large audience with his energetic, infectious music. Commissions are pouring in, from no small number of clients. He has already written two pieces for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: Out of Control (2011) and Chase...
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