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TOBIAS KOKKELMANS NEW DIRECTOR/DIRECTOR NEDERLANDS THEATRE FESTIVAL AND AMSTERDAM FRINGE FESTIVAL

Today, the Supervisory Board announced that Tobias Kokkelmans has been appointed as the new director/manager of Stichting de Theaterdagen, organiser of the Nederlands Theater Festival, Amsterdam Fringe Festival, NTFJong and the in-depth platform for professionals NTF-Pro, as of 1 September. In doing so, he succeeds Jeffrey Meulman, who in May this year left the Foundation after sixteen years for the Verkadefabriek.... 

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1 year of Corona in the City - Outdoor exhibition and online relay broadcast

Saturday 15 May 2021 marks exactly one year since Mayor Femke Halsema opened the Amsterdam Museum's digital exhibition Corona in de Stad. A digital exhibition about the effects of the corona virus on the city of Amsterdam and its inhabitants. To commemorate 1 year of Corona in the City, the Amsterdam Museum will be showing from 15... 

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Hanna Kulenty composes new piece for Bass Clarinet Festival: 'I'm making a collage of emotions'

Polish-Dutch Hanna Kulenty (Białystok, 1961) writes music that gets under your skin. Whether it is early works like Fourth Circle for violin and piano (1994), the opera Mother of Black-Winged Dreams about multiple personality syndrome (1995), or more recent compositions like the Viola Concerto (2015) and her Flute Concerto No.3 (2018), irrevocably you are taken on an exhilarating journey with a... 

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Gaudeamus: as a 75-year-old younger than ever

Anno 2020, Music Week is buzzing like never before. Even corona has barely caught on. How many 'Mozarts' have emerged by now I will leave open, but the rich and varied off- and online offerings create some choice stress. At 75, the organisation is younger than ever: Gaudeamus is the place to be.

Culture Council advisory committee chairman steps down: 'Nobody checks state museums anymore'

Wim Hupperetz, director of Amsterdam's Allard Pierson, has resigned his position as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Council for Culture. In protest, he says, against the irresponsible way in which the minister is now implementing the Culture Council's advice. 'If this continues, we will soon be giving millions of euros to a few... 

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Curious: arts sector support institutes turn against plans for new theatre and music sector institutes

There are quite a few petitions floating around these days. The most curious of all petitions was in the digital mailbox today. In it, the existing support institutes in the cultural sector urge the Lower House not to put money into new support institutes. In doing so, clubs such as the Landelijk Kennniscentrum Amateurkunst (LKCA), Cultuur+Ondernemen, and the Boekmanstichting put in a small but... 

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Without memory, our theatre continues to innovate mindlessly, it turns out at the @theatrefestival

Dutch theatre is remembering less and less. This was evident last Friday during two meetings at ITA, the building that once housed the Stadsschouwburg. During Nieuwe Grond, part of the Dutch Theatre Festival, the topic was heritage. One meeting will possibly be remembered by the six attendees: the two guests plus presenter, and their three audience members. The other... 

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Utrecht rules: Make Tivoli Oudegracht the venue for the reborn Performing Arts Sector Institute

The Culture Council wants it. Everyone wants it. And Utrecht wants it too, of course. A physical sector institute, where in a corner an old PC is humming with the total digital archive of Dutch theatre, and music, of course. Plus a library. With real books, scripts, photos. In 2012, the building was divested and the memory could... 

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Culture Council wants review of system, but cautious 'Theatre Sector Opinion' is licence for arbitrariness by House of Representatives

Today, the Culture Council comes out with one of the weaker advices in its existence. The Netherlands' highest cultural advisory body showed vision, leadership and boldness earlier this season with the 'Verkenning' and the 'Sectoradvies Muziek'. The exploration called for a reversal of subsidy flows, with urban regions taking the initiative. In the advice for the music sector, it broke... 

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Save and destroy: charge against squandering cultural heritage

A Saudi prince is paying $450 million for a mediocre painting by Leonardo da Vinci; a Dutch politician is pledging a crate of beer for a new composition. In a nutshell, these two extremes capture our current dealings with culture. Total contempt on the one hand and unimaginable overvaluation on the other are two sides of the same coin. We do not judge art for its... 

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Rozalie Hirs: "'parallel world [breathing]' is dreamlike musical landscape"

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... 

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String theory inspires organ concert: Peter Eötvös conducts KCO in Multiverse

On Thursday 19 October, Peter Eötvös will conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Dutch premiere of his organ concerto Multiversum, which he commissioned for the company. His brand new composition is flanked by works by György Ligeti and Claude Vivier. Transylvania's rich musical tradition Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eötvös (Székelyudvarhely, 1944) grew up in Transylvania. Towards the end of... 

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The new theatre system is just about finished. Only seven 'dilemmas' remain.

[This post was already online under the title 'Save us from the Transition Office', but has been updated in a few details] While you are preparing for a well-deserved holiday, people in the arts sector are working on a new model. That new model is needed because the old model is no longer adequate. That old model, and we are of course talking about our... 

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Important performances now available in full on Theatre Encyclopaedia

Watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by the Dutch Comedy in 1964, or Live, the 1979 video ballet by the Dutch National Ballet. You can now do so at the Theatre Encyclopaedia. Thanks to the crowdfunding campaign Being/Not Being. Theaterencyclopaedia had wanted for some time to put videos of a number of crown jewels from Dutch theatre performances on the internet. A nice start has now been made on that. Through a Voordekunst action, even more money has been raised... 

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Money: the biggest threat to our cultural heritage

Update: According to the Filmkrant, it's not all that bad: http://www.filmkrant.nl/nieuws_2013/9842

It was announced today that a large archive containing almost all raw film material from the Netherlands in the shredder threatens to disappear. Since film laboratory Cineco is bankrupt due to the vanished demand for oldskool celluloid, the vault containing unique historical material must also go. Unless someone comes forward who wants to store the material. And that costs quite a bit of money. Even though we no longer work with the highly flammable nitrate films, all that plastic must be kept safe.

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Another necro. Sort of: Theatre Institute Netherlands to continue as TIN Foundation

We are just reporting the press release in full. For your information. Every now and then, more news like this comes along. We don't post them all, because that would make the world very bleak. The world as many people knew it, and thought it was the pride of the Netherlands, is coming to a squeaking halt to make room for. Well. We will report on that in the years to come. Of what comes in its place.

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Archives Wim Kan and Louis Davids not in dumpster

The Theatre Museum's entire collection has been saved. The archives of such luminaries as Wim Kan and Louis Davids, as well as 50,000 theatre reviews, 30,000 theatre posters, 146,000 photographs of 22,000 performances, 26,000 portrait photographs of 2,450 theatre-makers and an extensive audio and video collection will be housed at the University of Amsterdam.The move is possible now that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), with the ever-money-hungry State Secretary for Culture Halbe Zijlstra, is no longer seizing the reserves of the Theater Instituut Nederland (TIN).

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Theatre Museum collection to be lost for good

[July update: the 2nd chamber passed a motion instructing the cabinet to save the collection from destruction. Where this is to be paid for, however, is still unclear]

It is now becoming clear where the laissez faire-laissez mourir (let it be done, let it die) policy of Halbe Zijlstra, Martin Bosma and Mark Rutte will lead. Of the dozens of institutions that will close, downsize or die off in the coming months due to vacancy of quality staff, the demise of the Theatre Institute of the Netherlands (TIN) is starting to take on very tragic proportions.

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Kick off subsidy addiction requires greater government effort than Zijlstra wants

Arts organisations are subsidy-addicted and so we are withdrawing subsidies. The VVD's approach is clear. On the exact how, they appear to need to think longer about that, now that there is so much opposition from the country. Cold Turkey, the treatment proposed by tolerance partner (nice word in this context) PVV, could well result in deaths. To... 

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