Concerts in honour of Amsterdam: 750 years
We celebrate Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary with two concerts full of special premieres. Tania Kross sings Joop Stokkermans songs and a new suite from the Antillean opera Katibu di shon. In addition, we’ll perform music for orchestra, choir and soloists by Louis Andriessen.
Amsterdam has been harbouring outside influences for 750 years. The city is defined by its polyphony: the more diverse the mix, the stronger the city’s character. This is echoed in its music. On 6 and 7 March, Bas Wiegers conducts two (partially different) concert programmes exploring Amsterdam’s polyphonic nature, featuring projected images by Ed van der Elsken and Frouke van de Velde.
A world of sounds
On 6 and 7 March, mezzo-soprano Tania Kross brings the rich culture of the Antilles to life in a new suite from Randal Corsen’s Katibu di shon, the first ever opera in Papiamentu. Composer Calliope Tsoupaki has lived and worked in Amsterdam for over 35 years. The memory of her arrival from Greece to the turbulent city inspired her newly commissioned work, Another Day. In Theo Verbey’s music, sounds from all over the world come together in an apartment in the East district of Amsterdam.
On Thursday 6 March, Tania Kross also sings two songs by Joop Stokkermans about commenting on multicultural Amsterdam in the 1970s, newly orchestrated by Thomas Beijer, before concluding the concert with the exiting music of Silvestre Revueltas, evoking the pre-colonial Mexican landscapes and cultures.
Buy tickets for the concert on 6 March
Polyphonic Amsterdam
On 7 March, Bas Wiegers conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra in a polyphonic programme featuring the Netherlands Radio Choir and vocal soloists Tania Kross and Katrien Baerts. The orchestra performs music by the Surinamese composer Eddy Vervuurt and three Dutch composers: Louis Andriessen, Calliope Tsoupaki and Theo Verbey.
In Louis Andriessen’s The City of Dis, we’ll board the Ship of Fools and enter a hellish city, one of water and flames. Andriessen (1939-2021) was the most important Dutch composer since Sweelinck; young composers from all over the world travelled to the Keizersgracht to study with him. Some stayed to enrich Amsterdam’s musical life further, including Calliope Tsoupaki. From 2018 to 2021, she was Composer Laureate of the Netherlands. Now she has written a new composition for us about colourful Amsterdam, in response to a poignant, image-rich poem by Anneke Brassinga.
Buy tickets for the concert on 7 March
These programmes are made possible thanks to the financial support of Ammodo.
