U-turn
March 14, 2007
Dance
Public Dance Theater / Amstel QuartetBrowsing through youtube I came across this video by the New York Public Dance Theater, with the Amstel Quartet playing music by Philip Glass. Wouldn't it be beautiful to walk over Dam square here in Amsterdam and bumping in a couple of people who just started to dance out of nothing. Would be nice to have the Amstel boys with them, then.
Posted by Renske at18:48 UTC | Permalink
March 12, 2007
Just for the fun of it
Clip by Walter MoersNot much to tell, except that I had a good laugh lately about this funny video clip. Be aware: the language is German.
Posted by Renske at10:59 UTC | Permalink
December 2, 2006
Voices, Noices, Choices
With a workgroup consisting of members of Componisten 96, Geneco en BIM we organized a composers forum in the Muziekgebouw.
Forum Noises, Voices, Choices (1) (Dutch)A forum itself is nothing special, but that people of Componisten 96 and Geneco were collaborating in it was.
People who attended the meeting were from various backgrounds. It is very encouraging that also representatives of several ensembles, publishers and theatre programmers joined in like Willem Heering (Asko Ensemble), Henk Heuvelmans (Gaudeamus), Theo van Dooremalen (annual festival November Music) and Mirjan Zegers (Donemus). And naturally the bulk of attendencees were composers.
In the forum we had composers from different backgrounds, like:
Samuel Vriezen
Guus Janssen
Klaas ten Holt
Richard Veenstra
Anne LaBerge
Peter Zegveld
Rene Uilenhoet
Forum Noises, Voices, Choices (2) (Dutch)Question on the roll were:
Are we mere grant junkies who don't bother about our audience?
Are we grounded in society and how does it show?
Do we reach our intended audience?
The most important issue that came up is the extremely poor quality of general music education in the Netherlands. This should be improved. (I know organizations like De Kamervraag and Gaudeamus are already working on plans to improve this.)
The meeting emphasized the need to merge the three (and in time more) organizations in a Unie van Componisten (Composers Union), so we can lobby for high quality art-music for everyone who is interested.
And it should be our concern and our aim that enough people in the public are interested. And apart from lobbying and raising money and work out papers etc. etc. we should compose the best music we can to attract audience to our concerts.
Posted by Renske at20:09 UTC | Permalink Tags: BIM, Componisten 96, Geneco, Muziekgebouw, Unie van Componisten
October 15, 2006
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina gives directions
to Pauline Post (Photo RV)Muziekgebouw aan het IJ had its doors open this afternoon for a public rehearsal in attendance of composer Sofia Gubaidulina. A good occasion to sniff the atmosphere and take some snapshots.
It is highly entertaining and educative to see some colleagues at work, like pianist Pauline Post getting directions how to perform some bars in Rubaiyat, or see Sofia Gubaidulina and bassoonist Stafanie Liedtke worry about a crescendo and decrescendo in Hommage à T.S. Eliot without losing or adding tones in a particular multiphonic.
This evening is the last of a small Gubaidulina festival in Amsterdam. Coming week she will be in Groningen where new music organization Prime and het Noord Nederlands Orkest are responsible for a five day festival about Gubaidulina and Heiner Goebbels.
Posted by Renske at18:43 UTC | Permalink Tags: Muziekgebouw, Sofia Gubaidulina, rehearsal
October 14, 2006
The art of engraving music
Scanning through the Sibelius forums I ran into this link about music engraving. As a mere mortal using software for musicnotation, I take a bow in deep respect for the skills shown in this 7 minute film clip.
Posted by Renske at14:12 UTC | Permalink Tags: music engraving, publishing
October 7, 2006
Wind and rain
Sound garden Kampen (Photo RV)One of the fun things of carillon concerts is that circumstances aren't always predicable. In Gdansk we had ideal conditions, but when Frans Haagen performed Square Prayer last night in Kampen at the opening concert of the Beiaardfestival (Dutch), the wind was blowing the sound away from the listening garden.
The audience (real diehards) where sheltering under their umbrellas and were offered a cup of coffee during the concert to keep warm.
Actually, I had a very good time. I went out to the main shopping street (the shops were open) and saw people pointing to the tower and dancing in the street on the carillon music.
In which classical concert halls does this happen!?
Posted by Renske at17:46 UTC | Permalink Tags: Frans Haagen, Kampen, Square Prayer, bad weather
October 1, 2006
Organ festival
While I write this, in Utrecht the Klankkleurenfestival is coming to its conclusion with a performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in a adaptation for organ. Earlier tonight I went to the first of two performances this evening where I witnessed an accompanying ballet that was completely obsolete in meaning.
To hear the Rite of Spring on the Marcussen-organ in the Nicolaï was a bit of a surprise. In general it worked quite well, although sometime the low registers had a habit of sounding muddy.
Speaking to Steven Taylor and Dick van Dijk who are part of the the festival organization, they told me it was a great success and many concerts were attended by more people than they had counted on. Even Swedish Radio came along to record a concert.
Posted by Renske at21:24 UTC | Permalink Tags: Rite of Spring, Stravinsky, Utrecht, organ
September 29, 2006
Standing ovation hazard
Two explicit minimal music concerts is throwing me way back to the days I still studied at the conservatory.
First the combined De Volharding's and Percussion Group The Hague's birthday party for Steve Reich with old and new works in Het Muziekgebouw. Nice, but alas not as on the edge as Reich's music needs to come to live.
But it was grades better than the poor performance by the Erfurt Opera's performance of Philip Glass's Waiting for the Barbarians. Out of tune (very often), out of sync (choir and orchestra) and a weak storyline. Where opera could function as food for thought about some issue (as is the case with the canceled Idomeneo performance in Berlin at the moment), we, the audience stumble over flaws a professional opera company should not exhibit.
It was therefore incomprehensible that a larger part of the audience gave a standing ovation (which seems to obligatory at the moment in the Netherlands). Maybe people want to feel they get the best performance for their bucks (somewhere between 35 and 65 euros per seat) even when, considering the price tag, we had all reasons to boo at them full speed.
Posted by Renske at12:12 UTC | Permalink Tags: Philip Glass, Steve Reich, mimimal music, opera
September 20, 2006
Tierkreis
On average I am not a fan of Karlheinz Stockhausen's music, since his brainpower has a habit of getting in the way. One of his compositions where brainpower and musical thinking seems to be well in balance is Tierkreis.
Last year I heard a performance of this composition by Calefax which was very impressive, and since today there is a version online for organ on orgelconcerten.ncrv.nl, that is great to listen to as well. Performance is by Klaas Hoek.
Posted by Renske at14:27 UTC | Permalink Tags: Calefax, NCRV, Stockhausen, organ
September 14, 2006
Walking distance
Bach statue (Photo RV) Apart from being a great talent himself, Felix Mendelssohn made himself a name by starting a tradition with the Mattheus Passion. What I never realized is the geographical and historical situation that made him the ideal man for the job.
His teacher was one of Bach sons and he lived only a five minute walk from the famous Thomas Kirche where Bach worked the larger part of his career.
Posted by Renske at14:04 UTC | Permalink
August 16, 2006
Blog down, blog up
Due to servermigration my blog has been down for a while. Rather frustrating, because there were some things I wanted to post about. But, as you can see, I am up and running again.
Posted by Renske at13:32 UTC | Permalink
July 23, 2006
Open air delightment
Sound garden (Photo RV)One week without my computer and the internet has had a healing effect. I had a kind of a system overload, so I desperately needed a break. Whereto? Well, if there is premiere at hand the choice is obvious, so me and my partner went to Gdansk in Poland.
The belltower of the recently badly damaged St. Catherine's Church formed the instrument of choice, since this was one of the intruments used during the 15th World Carillon Congress. Next to the tower is a lovely garden with benches, seating about 150 people. Fortunately we had a blue sky and about 23 degrees Celsius and shade from a couple of treetops.
In contrast with concert halls the sound of carillon and the electronics weren't limited to the garden, so many bystanders in the streets looked up and wondered what was happening. When one lives in the neighborhood the carillon sounds become part of city life and one doesn't hear them anymore. But with the electronics this was totally different.
Frans (Haagen) played beautifully. And this is an understatement since the keyboard wasn't replaced after the fire and still suffered from the water the Gdansk fire department sprayed over it to prevent the tower catching fire. Some of the keys were kind of stuck, but somehow Frans managed to muscle his way through, without noticeable artifacts for the listeners down below.
Posted by Renske at08:50 UTC | Permalink Tags: 15th World Carillon Congress, Frans Haagen, Gdansk, St. Catherine's Church, carillon
July 15, 2006
Laughing in a church
Today the International Organfestival in Haarlem opened with free concerts in the Sint Bavo church. The carillonneur (I seem to have a lot going on with carillons, lately) played on his instrument while he was visible on videoscreens. The same for organ-player Jos van der Kooy. The Amstel Saxophone Quartet played very well music by Arvo Pärt that suited the situation beautifully. This one hour concert was concluded with a short 1920 silent movie with Buster Keaton with improvisation on the Müller-organ. And it is always a pleasure to see Buster Keaton in action!
Posted by Renske at17:03 UTC | Permalink Tags: Haarlem, NCRV, organ
June 25, 2006
Logic tuning
As I described earlier, composing for carillon creates a whole range of tuning opportunities. Since the carillon Frans plays on weekly is a meantone instrument with the A tuned at 415 kHz, my original score and soundtrack can't be played without hurting our ears.
But here comes Apple's Logic to the rescue. Somewhere hidden in the menus is the command 'tuning'.
After slecting it I can not only choose meantone, but also specify which meantone tuning. Fantastic! Werckmeister III: it is a standard within Logic. Some other exotic one probably as well. And if it isn't, Logic gives me the opportunity to create my own ones.
Brilliant!
Posted by Renske at21:19 UTC | Permalink
June 19, 2006
Saved by the bell
Last night I spoke to Frans, who will perform Square Prayer in Gdansk. He told me only the roof of St. Catherine's Church was burned (bad enough) and that the carillon was saved by the solid construction of the tower. The bells were inspected last week and didn't seem to be damaged or detuned by the heat.
Only the carillon keyboard was severely damaged by the fire (or firefighting) and it will be replaced by a new one that is currently being built.
Posted by Renske at20:17 UTC | Permalink Tags: 15th World Carillon Congress, Frans Haagen, Gdansk, St. Catherine's Church, carillon