The good quiet
It's Maarten Ornstein with the news
Dear friends,
Some of you may already know that I’m working on a series of songs using poetry written in Gaza, and I’m pleased to announce that tickets are available now for the première on January 15th in Amsterdam. The project is called Tell it to the Sky, and as you can imagine the poems are incredibly powerful, filled with sadness, hope, anger and despair over what has happened there in the past months, if not years.
I feel it’s important to give these poets a voice that reaches as many ears as possible, and for me as a composer this is an opportunity to make a contribution. The songs will be performed by baritone Mattijs van de Woerd, pianist Antonii Baryshevskyi and cellist Nuala McKenna - three wonderful musicians with whom I’m honoured to work on this project.
Make a change!
It’s October, and many of you are probably aware that our tiny country is getting ready for elections. After too many years of rightwing and even downright racist governments, this is a great opportunity to change the tide and steer us away from hate, intolerance and xenophobia. Enough is enough, so go and vote, ok? Ok!
The Good Quiet
As you can imagine, most of my time is now dedicated to writing the songs for Tell it to the Sky, so I’m happy that I was able to clear my November schedule in order to have enough time to compose. So while I write in the good quiet, here are a few things for you to enjoy: my trio DASH! has released a new live album called Radio Rotor on the Road, available as a digital release. After 21 years (!) I still love to play with this band, and there is a lot more music to come.
Last month Johannette Zomer, Mike Fentross and I premiered our new program Memento. I composed two songs for it, one using a poem by Sappho of Athens and the other on a short poem by Princess Shikishi, a 12th century Japanese poet and royal who wrote some exquisitely beautiful short poetry. It’s a wonderful program and we are planning more concerts in 2026. Here’s a video.
Other bits of news
Obviously, not everything I do makes it to this newsletter. If you want to keep up:
On November 9th I will play with Kadri Tegelmann and Mike Fentross in Wilhelminaoord. You can also hear me play on the new album by Rima Khcheich to which I contributed some arrangements. I’m giving a composition masterclass at the Royal Conservatory later this month, and playing a short series of Christmas concerts in December (more on that later). The new BACH album with Mike Fentross will be out late January, and finally, there is a new opera on the horizon called Escape in Ecstasy. The first performance will be September 20th at the Musica Sacra Festival in Maastricht.