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Indien je een mens bent, laat dit veld leeg:.

Shostakovich

Music publicist Maarten Brandt: 'For one note from Mahler's Ninth, I would give the gift of Shostakovich's entire oeuvre'

by Thea Derks
19 November 201819 August 2019
13 min read
ACTUAL, MUSIC, PODIUM ART, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

Sounding Alchemy, is the name of the chunky volume recently published by music publicist Maarten Brandt (1953). It has 715 pages, including illustrations and an extensive index. In 98 articles, Brandt unfolds his views on music and music programming. He dedicated the beautifully designed book to his admired Marius Flothuis, programmer of the Concertgebouw Orchestra for many years. His heirs received a first copy during...

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Sofia Gubaidoelina: 'Only in the West could I set myself large-scale goals and realise them'

by Thea Derks
19 March 201827 September 2018
6 min read
MUSIC, PODIUM ART

Sofia Gubaidoelina has become a true audience favourite in our country. She is also a welcome guest in broadcasting series. The AVROTROS Friday Concert, for instance, brought the Dutch premieres of Glorious Percussion (2011) and O Komm, Heiliger Geist (2016). Friday 23 March will see the first Dutch performance of her Triple Concerto for bayan, violin and cello. The piece is dedicated to...

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Symphony of Psalms Igor Stravinsky: away with romantic sentiment

by Thea Derks
21 January 201830 March 2022
4 min read
For members only, MUSIC, PODIUM ART

On Wednesday 24 January, the Nederlands Kamerkoor presents an adventurous concert at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ to kick off a short tour. On the lecterns are rarely heard music by Lili Boulanger and Ton de Leeuw. The highlight is Igor Stravinsky's famous Psalm Symphony in a version for choir and piano four hands by Dmitri Shostakovich. Ralph van Raat and Bobby Mitchell sign...

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Cello Biennale full of highlights: 'Cellists are just nice people'

by Wenneke Savenije
30 October 201620 February 2017
9 min read
Cello Biennale, MUSIC, PODIUM ART

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...

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Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016): Finnish icon of contemporary music

by Thea Derks
28 July 201630 March 2022
3 min read
For members only, MUSIC, OPERA, PODIUM ART

Last Wednesday night, 27 July, Einojuhani Rautavaara died at his home in Helsinki, following complications during an operation. Aged 87, he was widely regarded as the uncrowned heir apparent to Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), who wrote his last notes around 1930.
Freed from shadow Sibelius
After that, things remained quiet on the Finnish front for a long time. It was not until the mid-1950s that Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016) breathed new life into Finnish music, with a series of symphonies and oper...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

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Conductor Han-Na Chang: 'Music never offers just one answer'

by Thea Derks
14 May 201630 March 2022
8 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC, PODIUM ART, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

'She is the embodiment of the incredible lightness of existence, agile, alert and precise on the beat.' So says one critic about Korean-American conductor Han-Na Chang (Suwon, 1982), who led just about every major orchestra after her debut in 2007. In 2014, she scored highly at the renowned BBC Proms with her fresh interpretation of the Fifth Symphony....

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Violinist Daniel Rowland: 'One spontaneous action can change the world'

by Thea Derks
21 December 201530 March 2022
9 min read
For members only, MUSIC, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

The healing power of music, some firmly believe in it - in 2013, it was even the premise of the City of London Festival. Believing that music can connect people and have a healing effect on conflictual societies, festival director Ian Ritchie asked the Brodsky Quartet to commission a composition around this theme. Thus was born the by...

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Arvo Pärt's music: not always a warm bath

by Thea Derks
20 November 201530 March 2022
6 min read
For members only, MUSIC, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

What titles come to mind when you hear the name Arvo Pärt? Sonatina opus 1; Symphony no. 1; Perpetuum mobile, or Fratres; Für Alina; Spiegel im Spiegel? My guess is the second set, because it was with pieces like these that Pärt conquered the world in the late 20th century. Audiences flocked in droves to immerse themselves in his sonorous sound world, but...

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A vital and pitiful procession: William Kentridge at EYE

by George Vermij
27 April 201530 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, VISUAL, FILM, Holland Festival, OPERA

With its latest retrospective If We Ever Get To Heaven, EYE again convincingly and confidently presents itself as a museum that looks beyond film history. This was already evident in previous exhibitions such as Expanded Cinema, which showcased visual artists working at the intersection of film and art. Now William Kentridge has been given the honour of...

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Top talent in final Princess Christina Competition

by Thea Derks
27 April 201530 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

On Sunday afternoon 26 April, I was a member of the press jury at the final of the Prinses Christina Competition in Lucent Danstheater in The Hague. Definitely not a punishment, as all six finalists performed at top level, no matter how young and inexperienced they were. Time and again, the organisation proves that all the gloom about the future of classical music is nonsense: this year too, there were...

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Composer Henryk Górecki: art or kitsch?

by Thea Derks
12 February 201530 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

This Saturday, 14 February 2015, Reinbert de Leeuw will conduct the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Polish composer Henryk Górecki's (1933-2010) Fourth Symphony at the NTR Saturday matinee. Górecki established his name overnight in 1992, when the CD of his Third Symphony shot to the top of the classical charts like a flare. The recording of this Symphony...

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Festival 'Alba Rosa Viva' puts forgotten composer centre stage

by Thea Derks
23 September 201430 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

This Sunday, September 28, the one-day festival Alba Rosa Viva will take place in Utrecht, in honour of the 125th birth anniversary of Alba Rosa Viëtor. Alba Rosa who?!!! Well, Alba Rosa Viëtor was an Italian violinist and composer who was born Alba Rosa in Milan in 1889. In 1919, she married Dutch businessman Jan Freseman Viëtor and in...

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Reinbert de Leeuw in Zomergasten, not in Muziekzomer

by Thea Derks
14 July 201430 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC

In just over two weeks, the NJO Music Summer will start, with more than sixty-five concerts performed by young musicians, spread across more and less obvious venues in the province of Gelderland. One hundred and sixty-one youngsters streamed in from all over the world to show their skills from 1 to 17 August. Anyone staying in Gelderland at that time could not possibly miss their presence.

There are performances at former factory sites, such as the Zoetenlaboratorium in Arnhem, the Zwitsalterre...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

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NJO honours Steve Reich

by Thea Derks
12 August 20138 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL, MUSIC

Ever since the establishment of the NJO Summer Academy in 2001, one composer takes centre stage every year, in the current edition it is Steve Reich (1936). During the NJO Music Summer, two hundred music students from fifteen countries will play a good number of compositions by the American grandmaster.

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Anna Mikhailova: 'Black Perfume is about addiction and fear'

by Thea Derks
10 December 201230 March 2022
4 min read
For members only, MUSIC

Amsterdam, 10-12-2012 - Last weekend saw the start of the Babel Festival at the Ostadetheater, an initiative of the Diamantfabriek. Founded two years ago, this production group offers young makers the chance to develop small-scale musical theatre. This weekend sees the premiere of Black Perfume, by Russian composer Anna Mikhailova and Dutch director Annechien Koerselman, based on Mikhail Bulgakov's story Morphine.
Mikhailova (Moscow, 1984) studied with the notorious Tichon Chren...

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Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

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Mahler Chamber Orchestra happily flirts with Haydn, but Russian composers will make you laugh #hf12

by one of our members
8 June 201213 February 2019
3 min read
Holland Festival, SPECIALS

True story. There is laughter in classical music. At many an orchestral rehearsal, the viola jokes are all over the place. And in the Concertgebouw, you might catch some mock chuckles. But classical composers are not known for their humour. Except Joseph Haydn. The Viennese composer brought a cosy witticism to his works here and there. One of his...

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