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Moritz Eggert on Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Does music become less interesting the fewer people are listening?’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
On Sunday 14 September, composer and pianist Moritz Eggert will premiere Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Ultra’ (Part 1) in the Gaudeamus Music Week in Utrecht. He is one of the jury members of the present issue, and this is the latest addition to his ever-expanding cycle for solo piano. He will play the first hour of what…
Concert arias Amy Beach prove true operatic gems | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Sometimes fate favours us. For instance, when recently three concert arias by the American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) were rediscovered and released on CD by the Münchner Symphoniker. It opens with her Gaelic Symphony, which was a resounding success at its premiere in 1896 and was immediately included in the canon of American music. Amy…
Composer Cecilie Ore makes water flow, freeze and mist | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Norwegian Cecilie Ore enjoys writing cycles. In 2021, her H2O-Trilogy saw the light of day, three pieces water for string quartet dedicated to. This was recently released on CD by the also Norwegian Engegård Quartet. The album concludes with Hototogisu for wind quintet, performed by the NyNorsk Messing Kvintet. Earlier, the four-part cycles Codex temporis…
Composer Sara Zamboni: ‘The Royal Conservatoire felt like a playground’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Composer and pianist Sara Zamboni often works interdisciplinary and designs choreographies for her musicians. On 7 June, the New European Ensemble will premiere a new piece in The Hague, inspired by star author Ali Smith's novel Summer. Sara Zamboni (c) Alex Schröder In 2014, Sara Zamboni (1990) moved from Italy to the Netherlands to pursue…
Huang Ruo: grief not quite palpable in ‘Between Two Lights’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Halfway through the third movement, attention slackens. People look at the ceiling, run their hands through their hair, shift in their seats. We are about three quarters of an hour in and have three more to go in Huang Ruo's six-part mourning piece Between Two Lights, during its world premiere at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan ‘t…
Die Seejungfrau: poignant love story by Alexander von Zemlinsky | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Alma Mahler was his star pupil and mistress, but she mocked him for his small stature and traded him for Gustav Mahler. On 16 May 2025, the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra plays Alexander von Zemlinsky's symphonic poem Die Seejungfrau under the baton of chief conductor Karina Canellakis. Also on the programme are Lili Boulanger's short…
Loss of an engaging sphinx – Pierre Audi died unexpectedly in Beijing | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Pierre Audi, the headstrong opera director who brought Dutch National Opera world fame with his adventurous productions, died on the night of May 2 to 3. He suffered a heart attack in Beijing, where, according to The New York Times, he was ‘for meetings related to future productions’, but was ‘preparing a reprise of one…
Carlijn Metselaar commemorates the bombing of Rotterdam in 1940: ‘Trauma may live on in future generations’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
In May 2025, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra commemorates the devastating bombing of Rotterdam that led to the Dutch capitulation to Nazi-Germany 85 years ago. Carlijn Metselaar wrote her composition Remembrance for the occasion. Carlijn Metselaar was born in 1989, almost half a century after the end of the Second World War, but still feels a…
Wilma von Webenau did not follow in the footsteps of teacher Arnold Schoenberg | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
The respectable German label Hänssler Classic devoted an album to three chamber music pieces by Wilma von Webenau (1875-1953), the first female student of Arnold Schoenberg. She had Ukrainian roots: her grandmother Julie von Webenau hailed from Lviv, then an important city in the Habsburg double monarchy. Grandma was also a composer and had studied…
Fie Schouten & Katharina Gross explore crossovers between clarinet and cello | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Bass clarinettist Fie Schouten and cellist Katharina Gross have made their mark as champions of experimental contemporary music. In 2022, they formed their eponymous duo. According to their website they specialise in ‘contemporary, international repertoire, in which both instrumentalists take pleasure in making all kinds of sounds in the lower frequencies resonate, merge, or contrast’.…
Calliope Tsoupaki: ‘Amsterdam breathes hope’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Born in Greece, Calliope Tsoupaki made it to Composer Laureate of the Netherlands, (2018-2021) in which capacity she wrote consolatory compositions during the covid-pandemic.* On the occasion of Amsterdam's 750th anniversary, she composed Another Day for the Concertgebouw Orchestra, that will be premiered on 6 March. Anneke Brassinga wrote an accompanying poem. Calliope Tsoupaki (c)…
Kurt Weill, dancer on the tightrope between art and kitsch | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
On Wednesday 19 February, the Flemish ensembles Collegium Vocale Gent and Het Collectief present the programme In Exile at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ Amsterdam. They will perform music by eight composers who fled the Nazis to America in the 1930s. From Arnold Schoenberg to Hanns Eisler and from Bartók tot Kurt Weill – who passed…
Joey Roukens: ‘In my Second Violin Concerto the music is trying to escape from the depths’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
On Friday 31 January, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Simone Lamsma will christen Joey Roukens' Second Violin Concerto, Ouf of the Deep under the baton of Markus Stenz, former chief conductor of the orchestra. The work was commissioned by the AVROTROS Vrijdag Concert and the world premiere in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht will be broadcast live…
Silvia Borzelli: ‘Cuerpo desierto is my Stabat Mater’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Italian-born Silvia Borzelli has lived in the Netherlands for many years. For a concert series around the Stabat Mater by Cappella Amsterdam in January 2025, she composed Cuerpo Desierto. It is based on a text by Mexican poet Susana Chávez, who was murdered in 2011 because of her fierce struggle against femicide. Silvia Borzelli (Rome,…
Composer Martijn Padding makes you smile | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Greatest Hits (So Far!) perfectly captures the fresh, ironizing view with which composer Martijn Padding (Amsterdam, 1956) views the music world and himself. Deadpan he calls his album Greatest Hits, stretching the hyperbole even further by adding ‘so far’. In this way, he fabulously ridicules the toe-curling pomposity that so often clung to modern classical…
Composer Maya Verlaak challenges musicians | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
The Hague-based Ensemble Klang's new CD Vanishing Point is entirely dedicated to three pieces by Flemish composer Maya Verlaak (Ghent, 1990). She likes to challenge herself, the audience and her musicians. Instead of ready-made scores, she sometimes presents performers with ‘puzzle scores’, in which they compete with an unpredictable computer that forces them to find…
Jörg Widmann: ‘Schubert sings because he can’t help it’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Clarinettist and composer Jörg Widmann (1973) cherishes tradition. His Octet for clarinet, horn, bassoon and string quintet is a tribute to Schubert’s piece of the same name. It will be performed by musicians of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in the small hall of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on 10 November 2024.
Franghiz Ali-zadeh at Cello Biennale 2024: ‘Composing is the unfolding of amorphous chunks of energy’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
The Amsterdam Cello Biennale celebrates its second lustrum in Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ from 31 October through 10 November 2024 with lots of premieres. Among them the Cello Concerto SÖVQ that the Azerbaijani composer Franghiz-Ali-zadeh composed for Amsterdam Sinfonietta. This will be premiered with the renowned cellist Kian Soltani. As in most of her music…
Caroline Shaw: ‘Nothing breaks writer’s block like walking!’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Composer, violinist and singer Caroline Shaw is a musical jack-of-all-trades, who doesn’t limit herself to the world of modern-classical music, but just as easily collaborates with pop musicians, filmmakers and dancers. She is composer in residence at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw from 2024-25, in which period she will compose a new piece for Sō Percussion. Caroline…
Dutch National Opera presents Rigoletto as a mental wreck in a psychiatric clinic | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Under dramatically dissonant orchestral sounds, the curtain rises on Rigoletto, Verdi's 17th opera, in the Amsterdam Music Theatre. Instead of the ballroom in the ducal palace from the libretto, we find ourselves in a frigid room in a psychiatric clinic. In this 2017 revival, director Damiano Michieletto presents Rigoletto as a mental wreck, broken by…
Brigitta Muntendorf: ‘I always ask myself: who is the audience?’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
In Brigitta Muntendorf’s work multimedia and audience participation play a major role. In our country she is still relatively unknown, but in the past Holland Festival she scored high with her transdigital music theatre piece Melencolia. Next season she will compose a new work for Asko|Schönberg. ‘I constantly ask myself: Who is the audience?’ Muntendorf…
CD Adrift: Delphine Trio presents male composers | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Three continents are united in the Delphine Trio, which consists of Australian clarinettist Magdalenna Krstevska, Dutch cellist Jobine Siekman and South African pianist Roelof Temmingh. They met at the Royal College of Music in London, where they formed their ensemble in 2020. The three musicians have so far performed mainly in the UK and the…
Theo Loevendie The Rise of Spinoza | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Ten years after the rave premiere of The Rise of Spinoza in 2014, the Dutch label Attacca released the live recording of Theo Loevendie' one-act opera on CD. Here's the review of the concert in NTRZaterdagMatinee I wrote at the time. After a decade, the opera is as poweful as ever, and the recording catches…
Choral music by Lūcija Garūta: from sweet-voiced to incendiary | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Thanks to the boom in female composers being rescued from oblivion lately, I was sent a CD by Latvian Lūcija Garūta (1902-1977). The album is entirely dedicated to her choral music and named after the opening song Apple Tree, which she composed in 1956. A number of pieces have their premieres on this album. Lūcija…
Pianist Antonio Oyarzabal presents new selection of women composers on La muse oubliée II | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
In 2021, Antonio Oyarzabal launched La muse oubliée, featuring music by thirteen well-known and lesser-known European women from the Baroque to the 20th century. Two years later, on El fin del silencio, he championed an odd 20 women composers from Latin America. The success of the two discs apparently tasted like more, for the Spanish-British…
Karmit Fadael writes Violin Concerto Mimesis: ‘Inevitably you put the stamp of your identity on your music’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Karmit Fadael started out as a violinist but is now a much sought-after composer. She regularly appears on radio and TV and has written an impressive number of works for renowned ensembles and festivals. On 11 April, her Violin Concerto Mimesis will be premiered at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam. She composed it for…
‘The Shell Trial’ drowns in too many characters and pamfleteering texts | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Engagement in the arts is back. In 2017, Kate Honey composed her Shell Symphony in protest against the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, which was sponsored by the polluting oil giant. Seven years later, Ellen Reid, composer in residence of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, wrote The Shell Trial. This opera was inspired by a play about the lawsuit against…
Energizing Faust-opera by Louise Bertin gets belated premiere at Aalto-Theater | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Every so often, a lost piece of music turns up and the entire press eagerly pounces on the new find. Yet the rediscovery of the opera Fausto by Louise Bertin seemed to elude their attention, apart from some reviews of the superb CD recording Palazzetto Bru Zane dedicated to this masterpiece. The first scenic performance…
Mathilde Wantenaar composes ‘Ballade’: ‘I briefly considered Ballad in Blue…’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
The AVROTROSVrijdagconcert has long programmed lesser-known works from the classical canon as well as championing Dutch composers. On Friday, March 8, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play the world premiere of Ballade by Mathilde Wantenaar. As always, the concert will be broadcast live on NPO Klassiek. Born in Amsterdam in 1993, Wantenaar has won many…
On the cutting edge: Delta Piano Trio plays Lera Auerbach | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Lera Auerbach (b. 1973, Chelyabinsk) grew up under Soviet dictatorship, but decided to trade it for the free West during a concert tour of America in 1991; a few months later, the Soviet Union fell apart. Auerbach continued to live in New York, building an increasingly successful career from there. She is by no means…
Adela Zaharia shines in overwhelming La traviata | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
‘I return to life! Oh joy!’ sings Adela Zaharia at the end of La traviata. Unassailable she stands on her tombstone, her arm raised to heaven as if she were the American Statue of Liberty. Dismay among the bystanders, as she clearly breathes her last with these words. The orchestra puts an end to her…
The Netherlands: home to Calliope Tsoupaki and Genevieve Murphy | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Attracted by the progressive musical climate, countless aspiring composers found their way to one of the Dutch conservatoires. Among them the Greek Calliope Tsoupaki (Piraeus, 1963) and the Scottish Geneviève Murphy (Dundee, 1988). Why did they come to the Netherlands and how has this impacted their artistry? A double interview I wrote for the French…
Unsuk Chin: ‘I want to entice the listener into a cosmological fantasy land’ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Unsuk Chin (Seoul, 1961) is at the centre of this season's radio concert series NTRZaterdagMatinee in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. On Saturday 13 January the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play the Dutch premiere of Alaraph 'Ritus des Herzschlags' (Ritual of a heartbeat). Artist's conception of two heartbeat stars and a companion star (c) NASA/JPL-Caltech This…
Slow Roads by Ivan Vukosavljević: a loving ode to the organ | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
Recently the new music label Elsewhere Music released the CD Slow Roads with eight organ pieces by Ivan Vukosavljević (1986). I got to know the Serbian/Dutch composer in 2017, when I interviewed him prior to the opening concert of the Gaudeamus Music Week, as one of the five nominees for the Gaudeamus Music Award. Although…
Lucia Lucas gives her voice to forgotten women | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
In the opera The World’s Wife, British poet Carol Ann Duffy retells ancient stories from a female perspective; her compatriot Tom Green wrote the music. Dutch Jorinde Keesmaat signed on to direct and the Ragazze Quartet managed to snare American baritone Lucia Lucas for the lead role. She came out as trans in 2013. The…
War drama ‘Song of the Dark Forest’ opens strong, but gradually loses tension | Contemporary Classical – Thea Derks
It is a golden idea: having a Ukrainian bass-baritone sing Russian songs while Ukraine groans under the devastating war of agression from its neighbour Russia. Director Serge van Veggel and his company Opera2Day have realised many special productions with changing partners, and joined forces with Scapino Ballet Rotterdam for Song of the Dark Forest. The…