With our concert programs we want to tell current and urgent stories. On stage but also off stage. With introductions, interviews and meetings between audience and artists, we provide a context to the performance that enriches the experience for concertgoers.
Context programming
Introduction
The context of a program provides depth and more connection to the program. During an introduction -preceding a concert- an expert tells more about the idea behind the program, or about the zeitgeist in which the program originated. A good example was the introduction that artistic director Tido Visser gave on the occasion of the program Van Gogh in Me. In it he went back to the fin de siecle, the time when not only was the music the choir performed composed, but Van Gogh and Gustav Klimt also painted the canvases that provided the visual inspiration for this program. In the process, Tido also explained how the video projections were created - all of which involved the music, a digital analysis of the paintings and the energy in the room.
Video - introduction: Van Gogh in Me
For this innovative performance by the Nederlands Kamerkoor, as part of the exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum on Gustav Klimt's sources of inspiration (from October 2022), the Nederlands Kamerkoor worked for three years with the audiovisual studio fuse* from Italy. They analyzed Van Gogh and Klimt's painting methods and use of color and developed algorithms that bring the brushstrokes to life. The choral music and the emotions of the audience and singers are retrieved from biometric data during the performance and immediately converted into images. In this way, images become audible and music visible in an almost synaesthetic experience.
Interviews
Prior to the world premiere of Flights of the Angakok, the monumental new work by world-renowned composer Lera Auerbach, she was interviewed. After all, she was not only present but would be conducting the premiere herself. It became a probing conversation about the urgency of climate issues, and the effect on Arctic cultures. Indeed, Auerbach incorporated the issues into her composition, and she explained the way in which the insights she gained and the culture she came to know sounded in Flights of the Angakok. A unique look inside the composer's head.
Video-interview - Tranen van Petrus
In The Tears of Peter, the Netherlands Chamber Choir placed Orlando di Lasso's masterpiece in the current context of the pandemic: what happens to man in times of isolation, loneliness and despair? Marijn Rademaker (former principal with the Dutch National Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet) dances the role of Peter - apostle and perhaps the most faithful follower of Jesus. Yet he denies Jesus. The disillusionment and loneliness that follow come to life in a scenic interplay between Peter and the chorus, co-directed by Tido Visser and Nanine Linning. In this video interview, similar to an interview before a performance, Tido and Nanine talk about Peter's struggle, interpreted by star dancer Marijn Rademaker, who is watched and accompanied by seven singers in life-size glass columns.
