Dutch Composers at Dutch Music Days 2009

In the year that conductor, composer and poet Micha Hamel is guest curator of the Dutch Music Days for the second time, the festival has an unmistakably interdisciplinary character. With its ‘Music and poetry’ theme the event reflects the disposition of its programme-maker.

The theme is not only pursued in the debates, which Hamel introduced last year, but also in a series of works written by composer-poet duos. Last year Hamel already observed the trend that composers are looking more and more beyond the boundaries of genres; this year he has taken the cross-pollination between the different arts as a starting-point to demonstrate the richness of Dutch music life.

True to tradition the programme, which has been put together in collaboration with the literary periodical De Revisor, includes a great many premieres by both upcoming talents and established names. Hamel himself has written a new, substantial version of his piece Gong from 2000 for this occasion. Loek Dikker, especially known for his international award-winning film music, has worked together with writer Allard Schröder to produce a new work for the concert hall. Martijn Padding, who was recently awarded the prize of the International Rostrum of Composers for his Harmonium Concerto which was premiered at the Dutch Music Days last year, will present Three reflexions on previous thoughts, a sequel – in any case in name – to similar reflections he composed earlier. Michel van der Aa’s Spaces of blank from 2007, in which he uses poems by poet and composer Rozalie Hirs, also features on the programme.

A different form of interdisciplinarity is Waxing & Waning, a ‘sound & lightscape’ musicologist and composer Anthony Fiumara and the young lighting artist and spatial designer Jaap van den Elzen created especially for the LED walls of the concert hall of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ.

In some cases the crossing the borders theme reaches beyond the arts to the artists themselves: composers such as Pete Harden, Florian Maier and Peter Adriaansz were not born in the Netherlands, but they did study here and in recent years have started to make their mark on Dutch music life. Remarkably these and other composers are also performing musicians, sometimes in quite different music circles. Maier, for example, is a musical jack-of-all-trades: this year he will present a new work with poet Saskia de Jong, and at the Dutch Music Days 2008 he featured as a composer, guitarist and singer of the metal band Noneuclid.

With such diversity and interdisciplinarity the programme convincingly showcases Hamel’s idea of a rich and varied music life – quality being most important, more so than being Dutch.

Joep Stapel