Willem Andriessen News
Dutch composer, pianist and music educator
Commemorations 2024 (Death: Willem Andriessen)
- piano
- classical music
- Kingdom of the Netherlands
- conductor, composer, pianist, musicologist, music teacher, university teacher
Last update
2024-04-22
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2023-10-14 08:18:00
Inspired by the Sea: composer Ed Bennett on the ideas behind 'Strange Waves', his large-scale immersive work eight-part multitracked cello & field recordings,
[…] ensemble, involving guitars and saxophones, that is to be premiered in the Netherlands in February 2024, and he is also working on some new piano music. Also for 2024, there is a new project with Decibel, working with an Irish poet on an evening-length work.He describes his influences as broad, he likes all sorts of things, not necessarily all of which things he would do in his own music. He enjoys the energy of Louis Andriessen's music, and the delicacy and clarity of Morten Feldman's, whilst he finds fascinating the music of Gloria Coates (the American composer based in Germany, who recently died). He feels that we don't hear enough of Coates' music and mentions her symphonies. He also has strong interests in jazz, electronic music and improvisation, as well as music that falls into the cracks between established genres.Ed Bennett: Strange Waves - Kate Ellis - Ergodos Ed Bennett: Psychedelia - RTÉ National […]
2022-07-29 09:16:00
A contemporary take on Bach: his Orgelbüchlein, completed by contemporary composers, receives its UK premiere
Bach's title page to the Orgelbüchlein Bach began his Orgelbüchlein whilst he was organist at the ducal court of Weimar. The plan was for 164 chorale preludes covering the entire church's year, but Bach only completed 46 of them, yet he tantalised posterity by listing the titles of all 164 preludes. The Orgelbüchlein project has invited contemporary composers to complete the work. Over more than a decade, project director and organist William Whitehead has commissioned contemporary composers such as John Rutter, Judith Bingham, Sir Stephen Hough, Sally Beamish, Louis Andriessen, Daniel Kidane, Roxanna Panufnik and Nico Muhly to fill in these missing pieces and rise to the project’s central challenge: if Bach were alive today, how might he go about writing a short chorale prelude in the Orgelbüchlein style? The result is a new and complete Orgelbüchlein for the 21st century, a collection of 164 short chorale preludes containing a fascinating cross-section of contemporary European styles, […]
2022-01-20 08:19:21
Honouring three revolutionary icons: Ensemble Offspring's Elegy celebrates the music of Louis Andriessen, Frederic Rzewski and Ian Shanahan
Ensemble Offspring's Elegy - Benjamin Kop, Christopher Pidcock Last year, I reviewed a terrific disc from the long-established Sydney-based contemporary music group, Ensemble Offspring featuring three commissions by Australian composers [see my review]. There is currently an opportunity to enjoy the group's work online as part of its digital initiative, Offspring for All. Their forthcoming online event, Elegy, debuts on 4 February on YouTube (at 8pm AEDT, which works out to be 9am, 5 February in the UK) and then available on demand on the ensemble's website. The concert honours three iconic composers who all died in 2021, Louis Andriessen (1939-2021), Frederic Rzweski (1938-2021) and Ian Shanahan (1962-2021). Each composer was, in his way, revolutionary and the concert showcases music written in the 1970s and 1980s (with one exception). They open Andriessen’s reflective and romantic Elegy (1975) for cello (Christopher Pidcock) and piano (Benjamin Kop), followed by the 2017 piano solo Rimsky or […]
2022-01-08 11:54:46
We live in a world where nothing has been left untouched by humanity: composer Jan-Peter de Graaff chats about the inspirations for his new cello concerto
[…] and with Maya Fridman, Jan-Peter had four months of rehearsals that he describes as very intense and a fantastic process. The new concerto is a virtuoso piece and technically difficult. This is to some extent a reaction to Maya Fridman's playing, and many composers have written for her. But Jan-Peter also admits that he enjoys showing off. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague where the influences were Morton Feldman (1926-1987) and Louis Andriessen (1993-2021), and there was a suspicion of technical virtuosity for its own sake. But Jan-Peter likes the idea of lots of notes in a short amount of time, providing the writing goes with the instrument, but this virtuosity even if dramatically conceived was against the Hague school ideas. But he then went to study at the Royal College of Music in London with composer Kenneth Hesketh, and Jan-Peter found it a great relief to […]
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