In the past academic year I spent quite some time creating and teaching a new course ‘Values in Music’ as part of the new minor Music Studies at Leiden University. It was my first teaching experience with (mainly) non-music students and I must say that this has been very enriching. Not only were the students open to study and discuss my classical and experimental music examples, in their personal assignments they also introduced me to some fascinating hip-hop, black metal, R&B, dance, funk, world music, etc. Interesting also to observe the interest of young adults in music from the seventies and eighties (from ABBA to Eno). Very happy with the positive evaluations and comments and looking forward to the next edition of the course, starting in 2021. An outline of all lectures in the course can be found here.
Enkele jaren geleden zag ik het indrukwekkende Mars II van Karl Van Welden en Frederik Croene tijdens het eerste Oortreders festival. Onlangs maakten beiden een nieuwe voorstelling, of althans een voorstudie daartoe. Een korte reflectie daarop, en een aansporing om het eindspel nog even uit te stellen.
It was a joy to perform Tubes again with Cathy van Eck, next to Cathy’s ‘Wings’ and a few other works at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. Also a great performance of Agostino di Scipio. More photo’s here.
End 2009 Frederik Croene premiered my Das Wohlpreparierte Klavier I at Transit Festival. It was quite a success, but also marked the end of a period of radical experiment and intensive composing, before getting a phd and moving into other fields. Next performance of Elisa Medinilla and Frederik Croene in DeBijloke may sound like a wake-up call. Indeed, after a compositional break of almost 10 years, book II and III are in the making, hopefully to be premiered towards the end of 2019!
After having worked for more than six years for Musica, my lectorate at The Hague Conservatoire brings me back to artistic research. I’ve always had an ambiguous relationship with the discourse around artistic research, even more so with the persistently recurring discussions between sceptics and defenders. The arguments on both sides are mostly predictable, and they usually fail to put the phenomenon in a wider context of societal, institutional and cultural evolutions. My view on artistic research has always been pragmatic, although I will try now to approach the topic from a more future-oriented perspective. What better way than starting with conditions and motivations? I made a short introductory text for the programme book of the master research symposium at the conservatoire end March. More to follow.
Thrilled to announce my appointment as lector ‘Music, Education and Society’ at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, starting from February 1. More information on:
