It's quite something, what Sami Yusuf brings to the stage: his own accompanying group of seasoned pros, the heavenly voices of Cappella Amsterdam and the traditionally Mediterranean sounds of the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra. Together, this results in a sound experience that moves from calm ponds with a gurgling fountain, to dry steppes winds, raging seas and overwhelming mountains. There could effortlessly be a...
November Music 2021 starts ticket sales and presents the programme. The festival cuts across musical genres with 90 concerts in 10 days with 20 commissioned works and 25 premieres. November Music takes place from 5 to 14 November 2021 at various venues in 's-Hertogenbosch, including the Bosch Requiem 2021 composed by Hawar Tawfiq, festival composers Rebecca Saunders and Kaija Saariaho, Brad...
This year, November Music awards 10 commissions to Dutch and two to foreign composers, including a choral work for Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. Traditionally, November Music opens with the Bosch Requiem on Friday 6 November, which of course takes on an extra charge this year. Korean-Dutch composer Seung-Won Oh draws inspiration from the YeonDo death ritual that links Korean funeral traditions with the Catholic faith. After Kate Moore and Calliope Tsoupaki, she is the third female composer of the Bosch Requiem in a row.
With a focus on the Dutch music scene, November Music aims to highlight the vitality and creativity of composers, creators and musicians during this 28th festival edition. Besides many new home-grown works, there are several concerts with leading roles for renowned foreign names. November Music 2020 takes place from 6 to 15 November at various locations in 's-Hertogenbosch with over 80 different concerts....
The Holland Festival 2020 had an exceptional year; due to the corona pandemic, it did not physically go ahead for the first time in its history. Instead, it was given an online programme as its fulfilment. Holland Festival online programme 2.0-2.0 was the 73rd edition of the festival and the second to work with an associate artist. This year, that was choreographer, director,...
What an incredible bucket of guts Lucie Horsch has. Twenty years old. Quite world-famous by now, admittedly. But you just have to dare, in your acceptance speech for the prestigious Dutch Music Prize, to throw the minister's just-expressed words back in her face. Because that is what Lucie Horsch did, with a controlled fury that made a deep impression even from 25 metres away. The...
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who made it possible for me to receive the Dutch Music Prize here today. Not only all the people who have helped me during the years of my trajectory and given me so much inspiration and motivation, but also everyone who has supported me from an early age in my...
From 11 to 21 June, the Holland Festival will present an online programme as close as possible to the core and essence of the original programme, which was cancelled due to the corona crisis. Together with artists from around the world who were due to perform in the 2020 festival, an alternative online programme has been put together. The festival theme, suggested by...
From 4 to 28 June 2020, Amsterdam will host the 73rd edition of the Holland Festival. Associate Artist this year is American choreographer, director, writer and dancer Bill T. Jones. His work will include the new show Deep Blue Sea, in which Jones himself dances and, assisted by a hundred mostly local...
The Holland Festival wishes you a happy 2020! The full programme of the 73rd festival edition will be announced on 11 February. You can already order tickets for the five productions below. Also in this newsletter: vacancies for a head of operations/controller, an employee development and interns for the communication & marketing and production departments; and aus LICHT named Opera of the Year 2019....
'An inspired conductor, with an intelligent approach to the score, a clear stroke and the ability to draw a choir into his vision. So says the jury of the Kersjes Prize about Lodewijk van der Ree (1986), who received this year's conducting prize. I have worked with him many times before and can wholeheartedly endorse this statement. Carte...
A black man sits on the edge of the stage of Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg, pardon ITA. He observes us with intense gaze as we walk into the auditorium. - As the incarnate subtitle of the performance Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) dedicated to Robert Mapplethorpe. Behind a gauze screen are the instruments of Asko|Schönberg, which, together with Roomful of Teeth, signs for...
Vier composities wijdde Jan van de Putte (1959) aan de poëzie van Fernando Pessoa. De integrale cyclus verscheen afgelopen najaar op de dubbel-cd Bamboleamos no mundo (‘we waggelen door de wereld’). De componist treft de kern van Pessoa’s ongrijpbare teksten met al even zinsbegoochelende muziek. Van de Putte is een van de origineelste stemmen in het Nederlandse muzieklandschap en tart…
Music and images, it remains a tricky combination. Do you see a picture with music, or do you hear music with a picture? That question was not answered unequivocally at the opening concert of the Holland Festival. The slowly changing colours of Gerhard Richter's canvases were matched by Marcus Schmickler's slowly fading sounds. While Richter's Patterns soon became boring,...
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...
De verwachtingen waren hooggespannen. Zowel Reinbert de Leeuw als Barbara Hannigan was genomineerd voor een Grammy Award 2018. Hannigan was voorgedragen voor Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, voor haar opnames van muziek van Berg, Gershwin & Berio. De Leeuw dong mee in de categorie Best Classical Compendium met zijn compilatie van alle gedirigeerde koor- en ensemblestukken van György Kurtág. Hannigan…
The string quartet is considered Joseph Haydn's invention; Goethe considered it the nec plus ultra of instrumental music. 'One hears four intelligent people conversing with each other' said the poet. 'One believes to understand something of their conversation and to know the idiosyncrasies of the instruments.' We get plenty of that opportunity from 27 January to 3 February, during...
De Gaudeamus Muziekweek lijkt het stadium van doorwrochte, maar publieksonvriendelijke ‘piep-knor’ definitief achter zich te hebben gelaten. Het gerenommeerde festival voor nieuwe muziek brengt in vijf dagen tijd 129 composities uit 32 landen. Asko|Schönberg en Cappella Amsterdam trapten woensdag 6 september af met een bonte variëteit aan stijlen. Aldus vormde het openingsconcert een graadmeter van wat modernemuziekliefhebbers tot en met…
The three-part CD box set of choral and ensemble works by György Kurtág is, in a word, overwhelming. His soul-transcending sounds are sublimely interpreted by Reinbert de Leeuw et al. The recording, too, is impeccable. This box set is already historic, a monument to the Hungarian grandmaster, who turned 91 last February. Kurtág's existentialist music was played in our country as early as the mid-1970s,...
American composer Julia Wolfe (1958) has a thing for the social history of her homeland. Steel Hammer reflects on the unequal struggle of man versus machine, as described in the folk ballad John Henry. Anthracite Fields zooms in on the hard life of miners in Pennsylvania. She won a Pulitzer Prize with it in 2015. The full-length oratorio is experiencing two July...
Wednesday 5 April kicks off the fifth edition of the biennial World Minimal Music Festival. For five days, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ will be filled with hypnotic rhythms, trance-inducing melodies and conjuring drones. Alongside well-known works by pioneers such as La Monte Young and Terry Riley are new compositions by Kate Moore and Bryce Dessner. There will also be performances by the Master...
Initiated by Pierre Audi in 2016, the Opera Forward Festival questions the future of musical theatre. The 13-day festival offers (young) creators and singers a chance to explore new avenues. For the second edition, Audi himself directed And You Must Suffer, a music-theatrical version of Bach's St John Passion. This production by Muziektheater Transparant and the early music ensemble B'Roque experienced its Tuesday 28 March...
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...
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...
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...
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