Composer in the Spotlight: Theo Loevendie

‘Bringing together different worlds,’ that is the way Theo Loevendie describes how he regards his music. For example, his western saxophone playing is characterised by ornaments taken from Turkish music. As a jazz musician and band leader he composed ‘classical’ music. As a composer he founded the ensemble Ziggurat featuring instruments you do not come across often in western music. And he approaches Ziggurat in the same way as he would a jazz ensemble: he does not just write for the instruments, but specifically for the musicians playing them.

The same open-mindedness forms the basis for his concerto for orchestra and tap dancer, Jubilation Jump. It was written for the 125th anniversary of the  Limburg Symphony Orchestra and will be premiered in September. With her rhythm the dancer provides a solo accompaniment to the orchestra: while the music follows its course, she improvises, using several basic patterns as point of departure.

It is the beginning of a busy autumn. Not only will Loevendie perform with Ziggurat at various events and two new CDs come out, but Loevendie’s mini-opera The Abolitionist will be premiered in Boston as well. The opera is about William Lloyd Garrison, a fanatic advocate of the abolition of slavery. Although the admiration for this mission plays an important role in the opera, Loevendie also recognises Garrison’s attitude that allowed no compromise. This is characteristic of his approach. In his own words: ‘I always try to integrate completely different elements, also in my compositions.’
René van Peer

Current events and premieres:

Tuesday 2 September 2008: Jubilation Jump (world premiere) for tap dancer and orchestra. Commissioned for the 125th anniversary of the Limburg Symphony Orchestra. LSO, ensemble Ziggurat and Marije Nie, tap dance. Maastricht, Theater aan het Vrijthof, 8.15 p.m.
Repeated on: 3 September in Maastricht, 5 September in Heerlen, 7 September in Venlo. At all these concerts (except in Venlo) Sic Vita will be performed as well.

Friday 3 October 2008: The Abolitionist (world premiere), a short opera for and commissioned by Boston Musica Viva.
Boston, United States

Autumn 2008: CD De Dag- en Nachtegaal, text adapted and read by Kees van Kooten. The CD appears in the Zoom series of the Bezige Bij. (German, English and Spanish versions also available). 

Autumn 2008: CD by ensemble Ziggurat with works by Theo Loevendie and Guus Janssen.

Wednesday 10 September: the Theo Loevendie All Stars.
Amsterdam, Bimhuis, 8.30 p.m.

Sunday 14 September Lopend Vuurtje in de straten van Amsterdam (world premiere), canon to commemorate the opening of the new building of the Conservatory in Amsterdam

Friday 7 November: De Nederlandse Muziek Dagen. Ensemble Ziggurat with works by Theo Loevendie.
Amsterdam, Bimhuis.

Sunday 16 November: November music. Ensemble Ziggurat with works by Theo Loevendie, Mete Erker and Jeroen van Vliet.
Den Bosch, De Toonzaal, 12.30 p.m.

Saturday 29 November: Six Turkish Folk Poems, Antwerp MC Amuz, 9 p.m.

16 to 25 January 2009: Storioni Festival, Eindhoven
Composer in Residence with, among others, the world premiere of a new work for erhu (Chinese violin) and piano trio. Storioni Trio with Weiling Fang, erhu.

Saturday 7 March 2009: Requies, an Operina (world premiere). NederlandsBlazers Ensemble, Choir of the Dutch Bach Society and ensemble Ziggurat.
Enschede, Muziekcentrum, 8 p.m.
Repeated on: 8 March in The Hague, 10 March in Leeuwarden, 11 March in Zwolle, 12 and 13 March in Amsterdam, 15 March in Haarlem

Friday 19 December 2009: Concerto for Prepared Piano (world premiere).
Ensemble Ziggurat with Ralph van Raat, piano.
Matinee op de Vrije Zaterdag.
Amsterdam, Concertgebouw, 2.15 p.m.

A concise personal protrait

Theo Loevendie’s interests:
Turkey, Turkish carpets (the crippled symmetry of Morton Feldman!), Turkish folk music, Turkish classical music, Indian music, African music, gamelan, Japanese music, philosophy and comparative linguistics.

Theo Loevendie’s heroes and inspiration:

Non-musical: Montaigne, Spinoza (inspiration) and Mandela (hero).
Musical: in the first place Duke Ellington, because until this very day he has been a source of inspiration, especially in an abstract way. With this I mean the way he dealt with the talents of musicians. Further, as monuments in order of importance: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Stravinsky, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Ravel, Debussy, Ives, Bartok and of course Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Ben Webster, Eric Dolphy, Monk and further of course Um Kalthum and Vilayat Khan.

Three characteristic statements by Theo Loevendie:

• Especially now that I have the feeling that for the first time in my life I belong to a new approach in composition to some extent (for as long as it lasts), I want to get this off my chest:
  I hate the use of the term avant-garde: immediately it regresses from the literal meaning ‘spear head’ to a designation of a style, with the rigidity and institutions that go with it, but that has nothing to do with the concept avant-garde. This applies to every genre, in music as well as in other arts.
  
  
• I have an idea of perfection that is exactly the opposite of that of Boulez, who continues to fiddle with his works. For me a composition is perfect when it expresses exactly what preoccupies me AT THAT MOMENT. So I never go back to a composition to perfect it, I prefer to compose something new that expresses what preoccupies me at that point.
  This view is influenced by my experience with improvisation, in which the NOW is present in a very extreme way and which to a lesser extent is of course also present in composed music; the spontaneousness, the unrepeatability. I consider tinkering with something that once occupied me watering it down.
  
  
• Talking about Boulez, I consider him a brilliant mind but a narrow-minded man with no understanding whatsoever for things that aren’t up his street. (Once he exclaimed: ‘Who doesn’t compose serial music counts for nothing.’) Likewise, some colleagues today assess music according to whether it is new or old-fashioned, for me this is totally irrelevant.
  Talking about streets: I don’t believe in schools of composers - the Rotterdam School, the The Hague School, the Amsterdam School (which I have sometimes been said to be part of) - this is all nonsense that leads to intolerance. I only believe in individual composers. And I know what I am talking about, because for a long time I have taught composition at the conservatories in all these three cities.