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Crowdfunding mini-opera: Dear Professor Einstein


    On 28 May 2022, the first edition of SNAAR Festival will take place at TivoliVredenburg. This new festival brings together beautiful music and exciting science in unique performances, created especially for SNAAR by musicians and scientists. An ode to curiosity! The first edition will focus on one of the most famous scientists ever: Albert Einstein. Besides being a brilliant scientist, he was also a violinist and a great lover of music. Festival initiator and violinist Merel Vercammen found extraordinary correspondences between Einstein and children. Einstein knew how to answer children's small but also big questions with wisdom and simplicity. Great material for a mini-opera, which will premiere during SNAAR: Dear Professor Einstein.


    Will you help us? 


    We look forward to sharing Dear Professor Einstein with audiences. But composing, producing and performing such a performance is expensive. We are very happy to have support from a number of funds, partners and sponsors, but we are not there yet. Would you like to help us realise this special mini-opera? Then support our crowdfunding on Voordekunst here! Check out the fun quid pro quo on the right, as a thank you for your support! How about an exclusive meet-and-greet, an improvisation made especially for you or a private concert by Merel Vercammen? Many thanks and hope to see you at the first edition of SNAAR Festival!

    Want to stay up to date with this project? Then follow SNAAR Festival on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or sign up for the newsletter via our website! Tickets for SNAAR Festival can be ordered from TivoliVredenburg.


    Premier at Strijkkwartet Biënnale on Radio 4


      Photo: © Meinke Klein


      With pain in their hearts, the organisers of the String Quartet Biennale decided to cancel the 2022 edition. Uncertainty about the measures that would apply during the biennale made it impossible to prepare an alternative scenario. Especially for the Evening Concert, however, the organisation did put together two wonderful programmes in which top string quartets and musicians from the up-and-coming generation can still be heard.

      On 30 January, several string quartets will play at the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. In the afternoon, recordings will take place that can be heard in the Evening Concert on 6 February. And in the evening, several string quartets will play live. So there is still a chance for all string quartet fans to enjoy the beauty the Biennale has to offer. And for your diary: the 2024 String Quartet Biennale will take place from 27 January to 3 February.


      Programme


      Belinfante Quartet

      Mathilde Wantenaar - movement from String Quartet no.1


      Cuarteto Casals

      Joseph Haydn - String quartet op.20/3

      Felix Mendelssohn - String Quartet no.33, op.44


      Borusan Quartet

      Fanny Mendelssohn - String Quartet

      Fazil Say - Divorce



      Karski Quartet

      Grazyna Bacewicz - String Quartet No.4 - Part I


      This broadcast is scheduled for 30 January 2022 from 20:00 to 23:00 and will be available around 23:30. Listen to it here on Radio 4

      Podcast 'De componistenkamer'


        The Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, the Casa Puccini in Lucca: spaces where the heart beats faster because the composer wrote his works there. Some in dire poverty, others in reasonable opulence but all struggling, violently in love or unjustly abandoned, smoking, drinking, with ambition and sometimes suffering from syphilis. That was then! Melchior Huurdeman (VPRO Vrije Geluiden) explores in the NPO Radio 4 podcast series De componistenkamer how the composer anno nowadays does his work.

        What is the composer's room like these days? And what goes on there? How inspiring should and should not the room be? Should the pencil always be in the same place? And why does one composer get so much inspiration from a bin of stones and another glorifies the view? The latter muses a bit and thus sets the creative process in motion.


        Episode 11 of De componistenkamer


        Mathilde Wantenaar looks out over Amsterdam, the city where she was born 28 years ago. This is also where she studied at the conservatory, with composers Willem Jeths and Wim Henderickx. The road to her latest orchestral work ‘Meander’ for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra was not an easy one. She talks candidly about the struggles during Corona that many musicians and composers will recognise. Together with her boyfriend, she lives in 1 room. In the same attic flat, she also composes. There is a piano, a cello, a guitar, a computer and a knitting machine.


        Mathilde Wantenaar's music has been described as lyrical, enchanting and eclectic yet authentic. The combination of her craftsmanship and openness to a wide range of genres make Wantenaar a versatile composer.


        She has since written pieces for the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Groot Omroepkoor, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. A month ago, her composition ‘Meander’ premiered at the Matinee. It was a commissioned work by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.


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