Afgelopen weekend bezocht ik een koffieconcert van het barokgezelschap The Continuo Company. Met m’n 53 jaar was ik een van de jongste bezoekers. Om me heen gerimpelde gezichten en grijze haren. Steeds vaker hoor ik dat vergrijzing van het publiek voor klassieke muziek een probleem is. Ik vind dat grote onzin en begin me steeds meer te ergeren aan deze…
The show Holy F opens with an audition. Two young women present themselves to a director - a man. They pronounce their phrases impeccably simultaneous, with the sweet tone men like to hear. Their confusion grows. Do they really understand what the director wants from them? Can they handle the role they aspire to? Playing a strong woman: is...
In the presence of Amnesty International and Edward Snowden - via a video link from Moscow - Oliver Stone's new film Snowden premiered at Tuschinski on Thursday night. The dramatised story of the young, gifted public servant who is troubled by his conscience and decides to go to the press is not very original or compellingly portrayed. But on the wave of...
In turbulent times, an evening of dance works therapeutically. Especially when three former Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) dancers show new work in Here we live and now. Only, anyone expecting a sharp look at current affairs by the programme title will be disappointed. Here we live and now refers mainly to choreographers living or working in The Hague and shows a snapshot of their...
'It took me 18 years to make a new recording,' Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich (1958) says with a modest smile. 'Just as much time as it takes a baby to come of age.' It is Wednesday, November 2. A special moment, because on that day Pogorelich's CD-less new recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas No 22 and No 24 will go on...
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...
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...
Festival Le Guess Who? in Utrecht staat aan de vooravond van zijn tiende editie. Van 10 tot en met 13 november nemen meer dan honderd artiesten bezit van elke denkbare plek in de Domstad waar je met goed fatsoen kunt optreden. Van heinde en verre komen ze, net als de bezoekers. Expect the unexpected, met de hele familie? Is dat…
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...
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…
Theatre group Aluin celebrates its 25th anniversary. The company, which originated at the Utrecht acting school, celebrated at the place where it all started: Utrecht's Theatercafé De Bastaard. On Sunday 23 October, they reprised their first ever performance, a play entitled 'It', based on the novella The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James. About a man who thinks he is destined...
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…
Cinekid also addresses gender balance and the imagination of boys and girls. A hotly debated issue on which the last word has not yet been said.
OK, it is still more than former tolerant partner PVV, which managed to cram the entire draft election programme onto a single A4 sheet. But in the half-page that the VVD, the country's largest party, spends on culture, it is actually worse. Here the Wilders and Zijlstra-inspired rancorous line against anything that even smells of Dutch culture is still abundantly clear....
'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...
Naar een idee van Marieke Stordiau, fagottiste in het Hexagon Ensemble, schrijft Joost Galema, journalist en programmeur, teksten die over boomdromen, muziek en tijd gaan. Zo ontstaat het Dagboek van een cello, een stuk dat de luisteraar uitdaagt tot nadenken over de verbanden tussen natuur en muziek. De première van Dagboek van een cello vond plaats in het Amesfoortse theater De…
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...
Nederlands Dans Theater 1 opent het seizoen met Stage One. Een drieluik zonder huischoreografen Léon & Lightfoot, maar met drie merendeels jonge, avontuurlijke dansmakers. Muziek is een belangrijke factor in alle drie de balletten. De avond opent met Thin Skin, de ode van choreograaf Marco Goecke aan punkicoon Patti Smith. Cultuurpers recenseerde het stuk vorig jaar (€). De nu flemende,…
The enthusiasm that characterised Toer van Schayk and his generation of choreographers is disappearing. With the programme Dutch Masters, the Dutch National Ballet is honouring an era. The success of Toer van Schayk and his generation If it is up to the public, the master ballets of the three great Van's (Rudi van Dantzig, Hans van Manen and Toer van Schayk) may stay for a while longer. As one man stood...
That 10 million is officially in. The art world is doing its best to sound grateful. The employers in the performing arts, gathered in the NAPK, have sent Bussemaker a thank you. Because she is not cutting 300 million from culture, but only 290 million. The extra money raked together last year by various lobbyists and parties is now anchored in the...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.