Last weekend, I attended a coffee concert by the baroque company The Continuo Company. At 53, I was one of the youngest visitors. Around me wrinkled faces and grey hair. I increasingly hear that ageing audiences for classical music are a problem. I think this is big nonsense and am becoming increasingly annoyed by this...
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 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 who live or work 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...
The much-discussed The Birth of a Nation about an American slave revolt gets a preview at two Dutch festivals. Debuting director Nate Parker boldly borrowed the title of famous and controversial classic.
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 buzzes, hums, 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 is on the eve of its tenth edition. From 10 to 13 November, more than a hundred artists will take possession of every conceivable place in the city of Dom where you can perform with good grace. They come from far and wide, just like the visitors. Expect the unexpected, with the whole family? Is that...
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...
Every morning Maarten Mostert, spiritual father and artistic director of the Cello Biennale Amsterdam, is squeezing oranges at half past seven in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The early birds among cello lovers then flock to the place to be for a free croissant with orange juice, followed by a top-notch performance of one of Bach's six Cello Suites in the 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...
The Cello Biennale Amsterdam, the world's largest cello festival taking place from 20 to 29 October in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, has begun and it is already taking a battering. For ten days, 27 international cello soloists, 6 orchestras, 11 ensembles, 1 choir and many musicians from 26 countries will give over 800 performances. From morning...
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...
Taking an idea from Marieke Stordiau, bassoonist in the Hexagon Ensemble, Joost Galema, journalist and programmer, writes texts that deal with tree dreams, music and time. This creates Diary of a Cello, a piece that challenges the listener to think about the connections between nature and music. The premiere of Diary of a cello took place at the Amesfoort theatre De...
A wonderful 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 opens the season with Stage One. A triptych without resident choreographers Léon & Lightfoot, but with three mostly young, adventurous dance makers. Music is an important factor in all three ballets. The evening opens with Thin Skin, choreographer Marco Goecke's ode to punk icon Patti Smith. Culture Press reviewed the piece last year (€). The now flemish,...
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...
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