Archive December 2006

« October 2006 | Main | March 2007 »

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 at 20:09 UTC | permanent link