On a cold rainy afternoon, I cycle to the Brakke Grond to ask Bert Hana about his motivations, as befits a beer. First, I visit the IDFA DocLab, which features his VR installation 'I Am Not Home Video', which we have talked about before. Bert Hana is perhaps every art critic's dream, as...
Until 31 December, classical music lovers can browse the unprecedented amount of sheet music, CDs and music books at Broekmans & van Poppel. The iconic shop, stately located next to Brasserie Keyzer and the Concertgebouw on the Van Baerlestraat in Amsterdam, will close its doors after 102 years. The family-run business will continue in Badhoevedorp, where the central warehouse is already...
The Belgenmonument in Amersfoort is the largest war memorial in the Netherlands. Construction started a hundred years ago. It was recently restored, but no longer has a function. New meaning is being sought. Architecture centre FASadE organised a design competition for this purpose. The aim: to give the Belgenmonument renewed meaning as a memorial but also as a symbol for the reception of contemporary displaced persons. The jury led by...
If the shock of 9-11 in 2016 highlighted anything, it was the yawning gap between the higher and lower educated in our neoliberal society. White, less-educated and angry male America elected a racist and war hitter as president. We can't help but conclude that democratic, liberal, highly educated and bigoted America refused to see the blow coming. In the spring ...
Magic cannot be grasped. Certainly not such a short and fabulous moment as twilight, when the day turns into evening so quickly and the lights go back on. It is precisely this elusive, short 'magic hour' that photographer Jan van der Horn (1951) tries to capture in his staged photographs. The magic pictures he takes light up from 11 November (St Martin's Day) until...
On Tuesday 2 November, Cappella Amsterdam presented a new CD at the Orgelpark. This includes Arvo Pärt's large-scale choral work Kanon Pokajanen, which was also performed live. After the concert, chief conductor Daniel Reuss was appointed Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion. This very high royal decoration is only awarded to people "with extraordinary merits...
Het veelbesproken The Birth of a Nation over een Amerikaanse slavenopstand krijgt een preview op twee Nederlandse festivals. Debuterend regisseur Nate Parker leende brutaalweg de titel van beroemde en omstreden klassieker.
I wrote this story in 2003, following the publication of a major historical study on theatre attendance. I return to it often, this research. Because it keeps me with both feet on the ground while screaming for culture. And because it underlines the need to overhaul the system anyway. 'Nothing so constant...
Unlike older colleagues, Bruno Mantovani (Châtillon, 1974) did not suffer from the modernist umbrella shadow that Pierre Boulez long cast over French musical life. He writes lyrical melodies as much as dissonant tone clusters and jazzy chords spiced with a pinch of microtonality. That he was appointed director of the Paris Conservatoire in 2010 illustrates how strong the musical climate...
It no longer hums, buzzes, sings, saws and buzzes in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The cello caravan has left. The sixth edition of the Cello Biennale Amsterdam is over, leaving the thousands of cello and music fans with a feeling of emptiness. Nowhere else does such an amazing festival of cello take place in ten days, where the audience feels like...
'He likes a joke,' says Fedor Teunisse of Slagwerk Den Haag, calling composer Brendan Faegre (1985) onto the Bimhuis stage. The young composer explains how the percussionists and the Biennale Cello Band should perform his Magical Quest for the Enchanted Armor. 'It's a game piece,' he says enthusiastically. 'The four percussionists and four cellists...
From 19 to 23 October, more than two thousand music professionals gathered in Santiago de Compostella for the 22nd World Music Expo (WOMEX). I was there and came back with mixed feelings. My first music fair experience was the WOMEX in Rotterdam. In 2001, the Maas city was the cultural capital of Europe and thus had extra resources at its disposal. The Berlin organiser of...
During the sixth edition of the Cello Biennale, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is a bustling place to be. Immediately upon entering on the first floor, you enter an atmospheric pop-up brasserie, with market stalls set up in every other nook and cranny. There is a selection of handmade cellos, bows, bridges, dampers and strings alongside a large selection of magazines, CDs...
The NAPK (Dutch Association for the Performing Arts) is sounding the alarm bell for the performing arts. The association of employers in the performing arts is launching a petition today and submitting a second fire letter to the Lower House on 1 November. Earlier this year, NAPK already sent a letter to the Lower House. And that was then written about here. Now, in preparation for the Lower House debate on the culture budget, a second...
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...
Iedere ochtend staat Maarten Mostert, geestelijk vader en artistiek directeur van de Cello Biënnale Amsterdam, om half acht sinaasappeltjes uit te persen in het Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. De vroege vogels onder de celloliefhebbers stromen dan massaal naar the place to be voor een gratis croissantje met jus d’orange, gevolgd door een topuitvoering van een van de zes Cellosuites van Bach in de serie Bach…
De Cello Biënnale Amsterdam, het grootste cellofeest ter wereld dat zich van 20 tot en met 29 oktober afspeelt in het Amsterdamse Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, is begonnen en het loopt er nu al storm. Tien dagen lang geven 27 internationale cellosolisten, 6 orkesten, 11 ensembles, 1 koor en vele musici uit 26 landen ruim 800 optredens. Van ‘s ochtends…
'Not only work has disappeared, but also knowledge and craft - the whole perspective is disappearing. While the Netherlands as a dance country was renowned in the world precisely because it had the luxury to research, to build, to stimulate.' Ronald Wintjes, the brand-new director of De Nederlandse Dansdagen, worries. What about the future of dance?....
This play is going to cost me a lot of friends, but it needs to get out. After all, the theatre industry is doing badly. And I can see more and more clearly where that is due to. And for once it's not Halbe Zijlstra. Or the VVD, or the population, or the Netherlands in general, or the zeitgeist. And it's not because of Netflix either...
Among all the great titles vying for attention, debuts are often overlooked. Each month, in the series The Debut, A Quattro Mani discusses a notable debut novel of recent times. On your own two feet You are eighteen, nineteen and moving out of the house, studying. The world is at your feet, freedom beckons, your promising dreams are about...
‘Happy Birthday Marilyn’ heet de nieuwe tentoonstelling in de Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. Al direct bij binnenkomst begint de heiligenverering, met een metershoge afbeelding van Marilyn Monroe in de beroemde opwaaiende jurk. Tot hoog in de nok van de zijbeuk. De toon is gezet: De Nieuwe Kerk biedt een podium om het icoon van de jaren vijftig, een eeuwig mooie…
A beautiful performance full of hilarity, excitement and lightness, yet it sent me out into the world with a sad feeling. It seems as if the four women in D3US/X\M4CHIN4 by choreographer/director Fernando Belfiore are in the land of infinite possibilities. Anything they can do. Do they also want everything? Are they still themselves when they can do everything? How does it feel when the earth...
On 19 February 2016, György Kurtág celebrated his 90th birthday. Though frail, the Hungarian grandmaster of soul-crushing notes is still working on his first and only opera, Fin du Partie (Endgame), based on Samuel Beckett's play of the same name. The prologue was already premiered at a grand birthday festival at the Liszt Academy in Budapest where he himself once studied. On Thursday 13 October, the...
The Golden Calfs have not even been handed out yet and the next film festival is already about to begin. On Friday 30 September, the 11th Buddhist Film Festival Europe (BFFE) will kick off at Eye in Amsterdam with a very special film. The opening film is produced in one of the smallest film countries and one of the most fascinating countries in the Far East: Bhutan. According to IMDB...
Today, Amsterdam Dance City sent a fire letter to funds and policymakers. Because things are going hard in the wrong direction with talent development. Especially independent choreographers lose out in the new subsidy plans. While these artists are already struggling to survive. Their own economic situation is hopeless and there are no good independent facilities to stage performances.
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