85 years of Andriessen

On 1 July 2021, Louis Andriessen, one of the greatest composers of the Netherlands, died. Ensemble I SOLISTI pays tribute to the master. He had a hard-to-overestimate influence on the international music scene, not only with his own work, but also as an academic teacher. The programme includes music by Andriessen himself, but also by Martijn Padding – student, colleague, and above all bosom friend of Andriessen. He composed a work for the same ensemble as once De Volharding, the ensemble with which both Andriessen and Padding were very familiar. This creates a multi-layered picture of the man who would have turned 85 this year.

Andriessen’s activist Workers Union (1975) has lost none of its power: its pounding rhythms seem to be harping on the miserable working conditions in factories. More free but no less urgent is M is for Man, Mozart, Music (1991), written as a tribute to Mozart on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s death. Andriessen’s music is propelled by banks of saxophones and brass. The accompanying film by Peter Greenaway, with whom Andriessen also made the operas Rosa and Writing to Vermeer, is a hilarious postmodern collage.

Echoes of Nothing
Monthly fringe programme in collaboration with Conservatorium van Amsterdam 

Inspired by the quote ‘Every something is an echo of nothing’ by composer John Cage, three students from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (Dániel Bolba, Lisa Schreiber and Sean Haid) are curating their own concert series. The mini concerts reflect on concerts from the programming in the Grand Hall and offer a new perspective on the concert experience.

This concert will be broadcast live by NTR on NPO Klassiek

Programme booklet (Dutch)