Kevin hello!
This is Maarten Ornstein with the news
Dear friends
Let me start (predictably) by wishing you all the very best for the new year. And before you ask, I have no resolutions. No dry January (tsss), losing weight (why?) or taking up sports (sport is bad as it leads to injury). I am however determined to continue to compose and play, and hopefully create some beauty. We’ll need it. And that, my friends, bring us to the news.
January 15: Première Tell it to the Sky, with special guest Abdelkader Benali
I composed six songs on poetry from Gaza, and the first performance will be in the Uilenburger Sjoel in Amsterdam on January 15th. With Mattijs van de Woerd (baritone), Nuala McKenna (cello) and Antonii Baryshevskyi (piano) Tickets are on sale here. The great Abdelkader Benali will be there to recite some of his own poetry on expulsion and violence. Here’s a video of one of the songs.
On January 9th, I will give an introduction to the program at 20:00 in Splendor Amsterdam. I will also play some music for you, talk about future plans and raise the glass for a New Year’s toast. Tickets are here
Al-Khymia
Just a few weeks ago, Frances Marie Uitti and I recorded the music for Al-Khymia, a project with duets we have been working on in 2025. Frances used her unique aluminum cello - with and without extra attachments- and I played clarinets and C-Melody saxophone. There’s quite some editing to do still, but I can already assure you that this is going to be a project of great beauty, full of unexpected colours, rhythms and melodies. Very, very different from the stuff I usually do, and I totally love it. In my next newsletters I can hopefully share a little music, for now here are two pictures I took during the session.
Kevin Hello!
Not really new news, but still worth writing about. Some weeks ago I heard Mattijs van de Woerd sing Kevin Hello!, a piece I wrote some years ago as part of the book Spells & Spam. It’s a collection of 10 pieces for voice a cappella, for fearless singers who want to try something a little different and challenging. I had almost forgotten I wrote it until I heard Mattijs sing it. The book can be purchased from Donemus, and there is more info about it here.
Bach Stockhausen Breuker
Please fasten your seatbelts, as Mike Fentross and I are close to releasing our new CD BACH. We’re in the final stages of editing the recordings and designing the album. I am very, very happy with the music; it’s quite amazing how well Bach’s music (Goldberg Variations) work with Stockhausen’s Tierkreis and Breukers Reisefieber. Not long to wait now, but of course I will send you an update when it’s there.
Lots more to talk about, like my progress on the cornetto, the new opera, and my month of seclusion on a small island, but I have no more time. So,
Congrats on the upcoming premiere! The combination of Gaza poetry with van de Woerd's baritone sounds incredibly poweful. I've always thought baritone voices carry emotional weight that tenors can't quite match for politically charged material. Really curious about how the Spells & Spam collection works in practice since a cappella writing for "fearles singers" sounds like a recipe for either brillance or disaster.