Wiek Hijmans (b. 1967) is tirelessly promoting the use of the electric guitar in contemporary composed music. He also likes to be influenced by jazz and rock in his own pieces. On Electric Language, his latest CD, he presents music by eight composers alongside his own Victus. Six pieces were composed especially for him. The disc appeared on the label...
The feeling of walking around in a bazaar straight out of one of the fairy tales of a thousand - and - one nights. Your eyes feast; colourful Persian carpets, atmospheric lanterns and exclusive 'merchandise'. With the new exhibition Iran- Cradle of Civilisation, the Drents Museum takes visitors to one of the oldest civilisations in the world. For the...
At the film sector's traditional Spring Consultation, the panel at the Ketelhuis shed its light on the video on demand explosion, among other things, and on the advice of the Council for Culture. Will operators support the film sector with levies on sales?
Grandpa tells. In 1989, a committee of experts chose a different theatre course in my city, Utrecht. The just-risen festival Theater aan de Werf would get more money, the marching theatre would disappear from 't Hoogt and the rest would have to take care of the newcomer with fewer days of programming. Then we took to the streets against the so-called 'festivalisation',...
Germans and humour. I have a bad experience with that. Will largely be because I don't get the finer nuances of the language, especially if it is meant for laughter. So it's not that the German sense of humour is wrong. In fact, sometimes something can just happen in German theatre that makes you laugh. I want...
The trigger for this story is that relatively recently, the Council for Culture published its sector foresight. The summary opens with the words that 'Culture moves'. A rather euphemistic statement in my view. In this case, it means that the making, spreading and experiencing of culture is constantly changing. The second very obvious observation of...
Poets Danez Smith and Patricia Lockwood once broke the internet with their virtuoso wordplay. Smith with a frothy tirade about ineradicable racism and police brutality in America (Dear White America) and Lockwood with a heartbreaking/funny poem about her rape (Rape Joke). Both have outgrown their hypes. They have secretly been doing a fantastic job for years, using Twitter, YouTube, paper and stage...
The premiere of the second season of Westworld takes place next week. I got to watch in advance. In case it doesn't ring a bell; Westworld is currently HBO's most popular series after Game of Thrones. Short synopsis: The show is set in the fictional Westworld: a technological Western theme park where the population consists entirely of synthetic androids, which are also...
Amsterdam, 8 March 2018. Today is Women's Day, no one can fail to notice. The media are brimming with articles about women's unequal pay and their still limited representation in prestigious positions. Whether in politics, business, academia or the arts. Perhaps the most conservative is the classical music world. There, the female composer has yet to...
It all starts at Orange College, of course. A fictional school with very real problems. For Sadettin Kırmızıyüz, the place where he commissions the opening part of Metropolis, a series that should eventually count four episodes. It is one of Het Nationale Theater's biggest projects over the next four years, in close cooperation with Kırmızıyüz's own company:...
Jonas Smulders is among the ten most promising young actors in Europe this year, the so-called Shooting Stars. At the Berlin Film Festival, he talks about his first steps and his ambition to direct.
On 25 January 2018, the Musical Awards were presented with, as we are used to, many translated reruns and calibrated repertoire. Also notable was the appreciation for new Dutch work. Many a writer will have been cheering on the sofa when 'Was Getekend, Annie M.G. Schmidt' won the awards. Does that bode well for the future? Can today's (small)...
The neat couple next to me, in the front row at the Holland Festival press conference, hadn't counted on it for a moment. Four members of the Nederlands Kamerkoor starting to undress one by one down to their pecker-sized nakie. A giggle, a small cough, but hey, this is the Holland Festival, they said to each other. So too...
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...
A Quattro Mani's pop-uprecent Afke Bohle takes up the challenge of reading a book with her sons. After good experiences with Suzie Ruzie and Susan van 't Hullenaar's The Green Hand series, she is now venturing into Tori, Brian Elstak's recent children's book in collaboration with author Karin Amatmoekrim, touted as: 'finally a book for all children'....
It is a rainy Tuesday. Walking distance from Utrecht Central Station, just behind the always lively Kanaalstraat in the Lombok district, I see a windmill on my right. That's where I will meet Karim Eharruyen today. Mill Park 10. Karim's studio is in a hidden idyllic spot in Utrecht. On the unusual site, I first check out his neighbours one by one:...
Called The Winter Collection, it is a five-day mini-festival full of surprises. Utrecht-based Theatre Kikker has now made it a tradition to provide some real surprises every year around Sinterklaas. 10 performances by young creators, from video art, to rowdy dance performance, from a silent monologue to post-dramatic cyberpunk, enough to give any theatre lover a wake-up call....
Musicians are no longer allowed to perform for a pittance. At least, not if the club they work for, or perform in, receives a subsidy. In a sector opinion released today, the Culture Council argues that the structural underpayment of workers in the creative sector is no longer sustainable. 'If that means fewer programmes can be made (or that there...
I Know a Secret is the twelfth thriller in the series surrounding detective Jane Rizzoli and pathologist-anatomist Maura Isles. Writer Tess Gerritsen reached an audience of millions with it, but longs for more. As the main characters of Tess Gerritsen's thrillers, detective Jane Rizzoli and pathologist Maura Isles have been through quite a bit by now. Yet they are startled by the state of their...
I treated myself to one of those noise-cancelling headphones. The thing produces anti-noise to filter out highway, refrigerator and air conditioning from my daily life. So that I can listen to podcasts better. Podcasts like The Dead Society's. In which I am reminded again how important background noise from highways, air conditioners and rustling trees is. Radio journalist Carine van Santen...
Utrecht's Wolvenplein prison is sort of empty. Anyone who doesn't happen to have a conviction behind them themselves should go there for fun. I did so myself two years ago on an art project about the surveillance society. When I returned on Tuesday, 17 October 2017, for The Prison Monologues, the impression was still there. The...
For centuries, scientists have seen connections between music and the ordering of the universe. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra took this as the starting point for its concert on 19 October in the Horizon series. A 'polyphonic cosmos' is being realised in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam. Peter Eötvös composed the organ concerto Multiversum for this, Rozalie Hirs wrote 'parallel world [breathing]'. Eötvös' piece is experiencing...
His work has been featured in renowned fashion magazines worldwide. Majid Karrouch is currently one of our international calling cards in the creative Industry. I sought him out in his studio, which is as extraordinary as the images he creates. SCENE 1: #Ont encounter A while ago, I was first introduced to the exceptional work of a hidden Moroccan-Dutch fashion talent via Instagram....
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...
Nationale Toneel Theatre is working on its mission to bring society to the stage. The Nation, that insane marathon with Romana Vrede about a disappearance in the Schilderswijk neighbourhood, and Mark Rietman, will be ready this autumn. Anyone who thought it was time for another slice of tedious retro hag comedy after that is wrong. We do have a classic coming up in...
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