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Violin concerto for Simone Lamsma



    Violinist Simone Lamsma did not have to think for long when the ZaterdagMatinee asked her who she would like to play a new violin concerto by. Her answer: ‘Mathilde Wantenaar’, the young Dutch composer who made her Matinee debut in 2019 with the choral work Dit zijn de bleeke, bleeklichte weken, on a text by Herman Gorter. Asked about her choice, Lamsma reveals, ‘Wantenaar's music is colourful and immediately captured my imagination. What immediately struck me on hearing her work is the directness in expression. Mathilde's musical voice is authentic. She writes in a language I feel very connected to.’


    On Saturday afternoon 24 September 2022 at 14.15, the new violin concerto will be premiered at the ZaterdagMatinee in The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, performed by Simone Lamsma and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karina Canellakis.


    Dear Professor Einstein premieres at SNAAR festival


      Albert Einstein himself thought it was crazy that people labelled him a ‘genius’. Why? Because he believed that he was simply more curious than others and was mainly concerned with finding answers to questions that adults no longer asked since they had passed their childhood.

      During SNAAR festival on Saturday afternoon 28 May, the Nederlands Kamerkoor, together with the young talents of NKK NXT and five musicians, will sing a brand new chamber opera by Mathilde Wantenaar, based on correspondences between Einstein and children. An ode to curiosity and to the wonderful coincidence that plays a role in everyone's life.



      With an afternoon ticket, you can attend both performances of Dear Professor Einstein at 15:30 and 16:30 and all other concerts except the evening concert. See the block schedule below.


      Brodsky Quartet & Virpi Räisänen premier 'Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis: Hier ist ja lauter Nacht'

        With the Brodsky Quartet, you can count on sophisticated and surprising programmes. Thursday 19 May (in Nijmegen) and Saturday 21 May (in Amsterdam) they join forces with Finnish mezzo-soprano Virpi Räisänen and perform works by Respighi, Shostakovich and Wantenaar.

        The Nijmeegse Stichting voor Kamermuziek was supposed to celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2020. Now that we can finally enjoy live music in the concert hall again, a celebration will still be held with a concert by the world-renowned Brodsky Quartet and mezzo-soprano Virpi Räisänen. Among other things, they will perform a brand new composition in beautiful neoclassical by Mathilde Wantenaar. The Dutch composer has been making a name for herself for several years with inventive compositions that also appeal to a wide audience. Her composition ‘Seufzer’, for instance, written for soprano Johannette Zomer as part of her ‘Bach2Ways’ project, was extensively discussed in the radio programme ‘De Schatkamer’ by (at the time) Composer of the Fatherland Willem Jeths. In tonight's string quartet, she again touches on this theme of fear and despair that speaks from the text of Bach's 21st cantata. At two-thirds of the piece, notes from ‘Seufzer’ were given a place again. ‘There is a kind of shadow Baroque’ the composer tells us when asked ’there are Baroque-like passages, but also freer ones that could be called a-tonal. Some passages, on the contrary, are very soft and tonal, like at the end with the words ‘Erfreue Dich Seele’, but this is rudely broken up. The music becomes more barren, the breath, as it were, falters and what remains is pure oppression and desperation: ‘Hier ist ja lauter Nacht.’


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