Archive December 2005
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December 28, 2005
Good music is timeless
Yesterday I was digitizing some audio tapes (pancakes we call'm where I work) and I was confronted with one the best audio experiences I ever had.
I was preparing an organ concert Charles de Wolff gave on his own house organ in 1971. There was very little reverb and I could here everything was recorded in a small room. I imagined the recording technician squeezing in his audio equipment
He played some music by Scheidemann (ca. 1595-1663) and it was just perfect.
Posted by Renske at 13:05 UTC | permanent link | Comments (0)
December 19, 2005
Turmoil
George Orwell would have loved this.
In Holland we have two composer unions. The first is named Geneco and it 's been established in 1911. The second one is Componisten 96 (nope, no website) and it is a large splinter that separated from the Geneco in 1996. The cause of the culprit: money, and, with that, control.
Although we are divided, and one group behaves over the other group with the opinion that some composers are more equal than others, we are in real need for unification.
The main source of income for compositional labor in Holland is the Fund for the Creation of Music. Our State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science Medy van der Laan has plans to terminate this fund and put the money in another organization.
C96 wants to leave everything as things are, but it isn't likely that is going to happen. Our government has given Dutch composers six months to come up with an alternative, otherwise she will proceed as planned.
Instead of cooling down, some people (on both sides) are prepping themselves for a fight among ourselves. I restrain from namedropping and I hope for those who think wise of themselves (especially the boardmembers) sprinkle us with their wisdom now.
Posted by Renske at 20:12 UTC | permanent link