Viennese musician Dominik Wagner surprises with the CD Chapters, entirely dedicated to the giant among string instruments – the double bass. Together with pianist Lauma Skride, he presents a choice of 14 tantalising pieces, ranging from Schubert and Ravel, through Fauré and Boulanger to Richter, Glass and, yes, Charles Chaplin. In the symphony orchestra, the double bass is the largest …
Ghent composer Stefaan Vanheertum has just released his new CD Suoni Celesti. The CD contains choral works he wrote between 2014 and 2021. The collection is the result of a concert that took place last September. Suoni Celesti (heavenly sounds) consists of religious and liturgical works and pieces based on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, Peter Verhelst, Nadine Anne Hura, …
This week we remember composer Karel Goyvaerts who unexpectedly died thirty years ago. He was a pioneer in many fields: integral serial music, electronics and minimal music. He is known as a hard-working and committed musician, who could easily have entered history with a little less modesty. Karel Goeyvaerts (1923 – 1993) studied piano, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, composition and music …
Last Saturday, deSingel’s stage in Antwerp was in the hands of BL!NDMAN, a collective group of strings, saxophones, percussion, keyboard, tubax and electronics with a programme based around three iconic American minimalists – Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. These three composers, all well into their eighties, have known each other since the late 1960s, when they played studio …
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Transit, the annual festival of contemporary classical music, was all about movement this year. Three different venues in Leuven offered an overview of new classical work, with highlights including a concerto for harpsichord and violin alongside new pieces by Daan Janssens and Annelies van Parys. Of the 14 pieces heard by this reviewer, 13 began in pianissimo. New modesty? An …
Festival 20.21 in Leuven packed out last Thursday with Near the Cross, a largely vocal programme dedicated to the pain in Mary’s life. The Prague vocal ensemble Capella Mariana, specialising in polyphony and early Baroque, formed a duo with the Belgian Goeyvaerts String Trio dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. A combination that was not very obvious but perhaps for …
The annual Festival 20.21 kicked off last Monday in Leuven (Belgium) with a tribute to the way Johann Sebastian Bach developed the musical idiom. In the opening concert BACHC®AB, his Musikalisches Opfer was the thread along which the interweaving of past and present was spun. The name of the concert is a play on words with the composer’s name and …
Tomorrow it is thirty years ago that John Cage died. Joyful existentialist, professional enfant terrible, innocent boy scout – Cage was everything. And if that had not been enough, he would have invented it. John Cage (1912 – 1992) was a composer, artist, painter, poet, Zen Buddhist, inventor and mushroom connoisseur (mycologist). A cultural and intellectual omnivore, who lived from …
By Wynold Verweij Those who think that balancing exercises mainly belong in a gym are wrong since last Saturday. In Annelies Van Parys’ piano concerto, Jan Michiels (piano) and Martyn Brabbins (conductor) with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra showed that a sophisticated tuning of timbre, nuance and tempo can lead to an intense listening experience. The 400-year history of the concerto …
Jan Michiels plays sparkling timbres in concerto Annelies Van Parys Read More »