Concertgebouw Orchestra: Polyphonic Amsterdam

Amsterdam 750

Amsterdam has been harbouring outside influences for 750 years. The more diverse the mix, the stronger the city’s character. Amsterdam is a city of many voices, a polyphony that is echoed in its music. Bas Wiegers leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Choir and soloists in a unique programme of many voices. Tania Kross sings songs from several cultures, and evokes the rich culture of the Antilles in arias from Randal Corsen’s Katibu di shon, the first opera in Papiamentu. In addition, the orchestra performs a work by the Surinamese composer Eddy Vervuurt (1928-1988) and three Dutch composers.

Louis Andriessen

In Theo Verbey’s Notturno, the whole world resonates in an Amsterdam appartment. In Louis Andriessen’s opera De stad van Dis (The City of Dis), we board the Ship of Fools and enter a hellish city, one of water and fire. Andriessen was an inspiring composition teacher, drawing young composers from all over the world to Keizersgracht in Amsterdam for lessons. Some stayed on to further enrich musical life here, such as the former Composer Laureate of the Netherlands Calliope Tsoupaki, a citizen of Amsterdam since 1988. This programme features her newly commissioned Another Day, based on a poem by Anneke Brassinga.

This concert will be enriched by surtitles and images by Frouke ten Velden