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TivoliVredenburg

One of our finest singers (also a pianist) sings Schubert and Bannink in coronaproof living room setting at TivoliVredenburg...enjoy!

This video by Thomas Oliemans is really fun to watch, it lasts 1 hour and 14 min. That's how nice streaming can be. So much nicer when you're there!... You can log in now to continue reading! Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, more than 4,000 posts we have published since... 

TivoliVredenburg presents programme on US election night - Historic election live on 3 November

On Tuesday 3 November 2020, America goes to the polls. TivoliVredenburg in
Utrecht presents a live programme around these exciting elections. From
the Great Hall to monitor exit polls, enter scientists, journalists and
campaigners take the stage and call in several Americans. The programme will be
'coronaproof' produced.

Gaudeamus: as a 75-year-old younger than ever

Anno 2020, Music Week is buzzing like never before. Even corona has barely caught on. How many 'Mozarts' have emerged by now I will leave open, but the rich and varied off- and online offerings create some choice stress. At 75, the organisation is younger than ever: Gaudeamus is the place to be.

Creation returns: Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and Bart Moeyaert on tour again

In October, the Blazers and Bart Moeyaert will tour again with De Schepping, the first part of this successful musical theatre trilogy. During this performance, Bart Moeyaert (winner of the 2019 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the 'Nobel Prize for children's literature') tells the story using a self-written text to this old, but never performed this way, music by Haydn.

Where did things go wrong between culture decision-makers and the region?

It could have been so beautiful. In a not so grey past, the Council for Culture, then under a different management, initiated a movement that would give more authority to the region outside the Randstad. That was three years ago. Now there is an (entirely justified) angry letter in the newspaper from the culture deputies of 9... 

Vincent Wijlhuizen is working on a coronaproof What You See Festival: 'a very large group of people are now much less visible.' 

Immediately after the lockdown was declared in March 2020, Vincent Wijlhuizen, co-founder (along with Annette van Zwol and Ieme Soes) and director of the What you See Festival, set to work to come up with alternatives for the festival, which takes place in the autumn. 'We made several plans. We already had an ordinary plan, which went to all the funds... 

The House of Representatives has until Monday 29 June to save the culture (sector).

2.6 billion euros. It is a sum so large that it means nothing to anyone. It is less than the tax support KLM gets, though. Today Kunsten 92, the arts-wide lobbying organisation, in an unprecedented collaboration with all interest groups and industry associations, brought out that that 2.6 billion is the damage to the arts sector caused by the restrictive measures.... 

'I don't see Le Guess Who happening on a grass field'. Johan Gijsen on postponement of critically acclaimed festival

'At the beginning of March we were still having a bit of a laugh about the virus, but a week later it became clear to me that we would be in serious trouble this year.' Johan Gijsen, director and founder of the Utrecht-based festival that brings together the most surprising artists from all genres of the international music world every November, is still visibly... 

The lobby has made art just a little too big. Now populism is reaping the benefits of that.

Naturally, I stand speechless along the sidelines watching Dutch art get hit by a 'perfect storm'. Two, maybe three deep depressions crossing each other at the worst possible moment, creating a surge that sinks even the strongest ships. In this case: an extremely weak minister, a cultural sector divided to the bone ... 

Requiem for an ideal music lover. 'Grandpa Hippo' is no more: Frans Curvers dies, aged 91

'Thea, have you heard that new piece yet? It's beautiful!' And there plopped another wetransfer in with a recording by Kate Moore, Pete Harden, Calliope Tsoupaki or any other composer. Frans Curvers was at the front of every (world) premiere. Whether it took place at Paradiso in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam, TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht or a backstreet church somewhere.... 

Podcast in times of Corona (3): 'We drank the last beer from the pipes and then turned out the lights.' (On the closure of TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht)

'It was very strange to leave here. Such a place that is always on, where it is always busy, where it is always light, that was now just black.' Lieke Timmermans, manager of Marketing and Communications at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht still can't quite grasp it. On Thursday 12 March 2020, after the government's press conference, the programme had to... 

Eva's Klage at TivoliVredenburg: Lera Auerbach takes on the smothered female voice

Russian Lera Auerbach (1973) does not shy away from big challenges. And that is an understatement. Most recently, she made a big impression with her cycle Goetia 72: in umbra lucis. She composed this setting of the names of 72 demons for the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the string quartet Quatuor Danel. A CD of 72 Angels: in splendore lucis, in which... 

Netherlands Wind Ensemble plays 9th Beethoven in collaboration with Consensus Vocalis and local choirs: All Together!

From Thursday 23 January, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble (NBE) will play 9th Beethoven. The tour will take in venues in Amsterdam, Enschede, Tilburg, Wageningen, Drachten, Oss, Utrecht, Heerlen, Haarlem and Arnhem. In this great Beethoven year, the NBE chooses one of his most iconic works: the ninth symphony, with its famous ode Ode to Joy, on lyrics by Friedrich Schiller. In the political turmoil of around 1800, it was clear where Beethoven's sympathies lay: he was... 

'High time for an end to segregated religions!' - Joost Kleppe composes Spirit of Mustafa for Groot Omroepkoor and Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

'Everything I make stems from feeling, from being touched', Joost Kleppe (1963) once said about his music. That sensibility is often triggered by poetry and his oeuvre therefore includes many vocal works. His lyrical, rhythmically varied pieces regularly appear on the desks of both professional and amateur choirs. With his appealing style, Kleppe follows in the footsteps of illustrious composers,... 

Who said modern music was humourless and cerebral again? American Kelley Sheehan wins in Music Week full of humour and reflection

For a moment, the envelope seems unopenable but then Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven conjures up the redeeming paper after all. 'The winner of the 2019 Gaudeamus Award is Kelley Sheehan!' The little American almost falls off her stool in amazement. Probably not entirely by chance, the new music organisation has positioned her right in the middle of her four fellow candidates. - She herself would... 

First aid for blaze. Rudolf Escher offers solace with Musique pour l'esprit en deuil

Monday 15 April 2019, this date is forever etched in our memory. I couldn't keep dry at the images of the all-consuming fire at Notre-Dame de Paris. Like millions of others, I sat glued to my screen for hours with bated breath: this cannot be true! When the structure, the rose windows and even the organ turned out to be saved, I jumped... 

TivoliVredenburg during construction. Photo: Wijbrand Schaap

Without TivoliVredenburg, the improvement of the Utrecht station area would have come to nothing.

There is an artist café in Utrecht that few Utrechters know about. And I don't mean Theatercafé De Bastaard, where by now a whole generation of actors, filmmakers and writers come from, but the artists' foyer of TivoliVredenburg. I've eaten and hung out there a few times, as an embedded reporter of De Nacht van de Poëzie, when it's very late into... 

Petra Gerritsen goes to a concert almost every night off. 'You're with your own group. But how bad is that?'

'I work five nights a week and so I have to find out specifically when I can go to a concert. Sometimes I take time off for it. And then they do say, "hey, are you going to a concert again already?", and I say, "of course I'm going to a concert again". But I don't think it's extreme either.' Petra Gerritsen is process expert 

Fred Wondergem: 'There is always more that you don't see than what you do see.'

'When I look in the auditorium at a classical concert now, I do think: it's full now, but in 20 years eighty per cent will be dead. So the bottom has to be fed, and TivoliVredenburg does that well. They do it, for example, with Out of the Blue, which is a programme where you get great food and by a special host 

Forty times a year to TivoliVredenburg: 'You get everywhere if you love music, eh.'

Peter Vossen says he experiences live concerts on average twice a week. Not just in TivoliVredenburg, although he visited there almost 40 times last year. 'I also see a lot of free concerts on the streets and in cafés, of course.' Jazz is his great love, but he also attends soul, funk, Latin or pop concerts. Regularly, he can be found 

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