No ice cream
This is Maarten Ornstein with the news
Dear friends,
Thank you for reading my monthly newsletter, coming to you via Substack. Let me start this edition with a little bombshell: I took up playing the cornetto! Obviously I don’t mean the ice cream (I was never one for sweets) but rather the elusive wind instrument also known as the cornett, or the zink.
In its day this wonderful instrument was praised for having a sound that comes closest to the human voice of all instruments (they say the same about the saxophone these days), and despite being very difficult to play it was widely used by composers up until the 1650’s or so. It’s made from wood or animal horn (or plastic), uses a tiny trumpet-style mouthpiece and a fingering system like you find on recorders. After one lesson and two weeks of practice I can say that it is indeed very hard to play (above is a picture I took after my first practice session). But I have an amazing teacher in Doron Sherwin and I am determined to make this work.
Tell it to the Sky: done!
Besides practicing the cornetto and playing a few concerts, I’ve spent al my time in November completing the music for the project Tell it to the Sky: a cycle of six songs for baritone, cello and piano using poetry written by poets from Gaza, plus some connecting instrumental pieces.
Giving these poets a voice in music is something that’s very important to me, and once again I thank the Gaza Poets Society for all their help with selecting the poems. Tickets are now on sale for the concert on January 15th in the Uilenburger Sjoel in Amsterdam, with Mattijs van de Woerd, Nuala Mckenna and Antonii Baryshevskyi.
What’s on for December?
Next month I will switch from composing to playing. Here are some highlights that I’m looking forward to: On December 13th, Splendor will collaborate with the Rembrandthuis Museum for the annual Bathhouse Lecture, delivered this year by Leonore van Sloten. This year’s lecture is about the music in and around Rembrandt’s house, and we will be performing in his chambers as well as in Splendor. Limited tickets available, so be quick.
A little Christmas tour
Last year Gerard Bouwhuis, Emily Beynon, Heleen Hulst and myself played a Christmas concert in Splendor which was so much fun we decided to do it again.
I’m pleased that we will play it three times this year: December 20th in the Concertgemaal, the 24th in the Roode Bioscoop and the 26th in Splendor. Baritone Mattijs van de Woerd will join us in a program with music by Frank Martin, Arvo Pärt, Béla Bartók and some selected Christmas evergreens arranged by me (which incidentally you can download from my site here).
More & Other
For many years now I have worked with Lebanese singer Rima Khcheich, and I wrote a few arrangements for her latest album which we will play on December 15th on the Arabian Days festival in Abu Dhabi.
Last, but certainly not least, cellist Frances-Marie Uitti and I will record our project Al-Khymia in December.
It’s going to be just wonderful; duets for cello and (bass) clarinet or C-melody saxophone, all based on or inspired by visual arts, old manuscripts and our own imagination. Much, much more about this in the next edition of this newsletter.