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.

Sofia Gubaidulina gives directions
to Pauline Post (Photo RV)

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.

Sound garden Kampen (Photo RV)

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!?

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.

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.

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.

Bach statue (Photo RV)

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.

Sound garden (Photo RV)

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.

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!

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.