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Holland Festival Proms - Sacred Environment

Steve Mackey, George Crumb, Kate Moore, Ruben van Leer, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Groot Omroepkoor

Sacred Environment is a ground-breaking new work by the Dutch-Australian composer Kate Moore and visual artist Ruben van Leer, commissioned by the Holland Festival and NTR Radio. The oratorio is being performed and sung by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir. The Australian singer Alex Oomens goes on a virtual reality dream-track towards the Hunter Valley in Australia, originally the territory of the Dharug, Darkinjung and Wonnarua people. The audience will follow her on a big screen in search of the stoneless temple. In this piece, the changing meaning of sacred ground in our demythologised society is being explored. A similar issue is touched upon in Haunted Landscape by George Crumb, the festival’s composer in focus this year. The concert opens with Steven Mackey’s energetic piece Lost and Found. Expect multi-layered soundscapes.

Sacred Environment is a ground-breaking new work by the Dutch-Australian composer Kate Moore and visual artist Ruben van Leer, commissioned by the Holland Festival and NTR Radio. The oratorio is being performed and sung by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir. The Australian singer Alex Oomens goes on a virtual reality dream-track towards the Hunter Valley in Australia, originally the territory of the Dharug, Darkinjung and Wonnarua people. The audience will follow her on a big screen in search of the stoneless temple. In this piece, the changing meaning of sacred ground in our demythologised society is being explored. A similar issue is touched upon in Haunted Landscape by George Crumb, the festival’s composer in focus this year. The concert opens with Steven Mackey’s energetic piece Lost and Found. Expect multi-layered soundscapes.

Steven Mackey (1956)

Lost and Found (1996)

 

George Crumb (1929)

A haunted landscape (1984)

Dutch premiere

 

Kate Moore (1979)

Sacred Environment (2017)

commissioned by Holland Festival, NTR Radio

world premiere

 

From the brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen playing Karlheinz Stockhausen to an opera-installation by the Indonesian artist Jompet Kuswidananto. The day is being hosted by comedian and television presenter Klaas van der Eerden. In the intermissions there will be performances by conservatory students, as well as short introductions to the concerts. For only ten euros per concert – or less for those who buy a day pass – you can hear the latest and most adventurous music from around the world. There’s an afterparty that night for everyone who can’t get enough of it.

 

For a whole day, from noon until late at night, there will be a vibrant mini-festival in The Concertgebouw. The Holland Festival Proms consists of five concerts and an installation. From a concert with virtual reality to the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and the swinging music of The Nile Project.

 

and the integration of non-Western elements while his exquisite calligraphic scores introduce unusual musical notations. 

His music is atmospheric, mysterious and sometimes gripping, but the descriptive imagery surrounding the works provides accessibility. While embodying the American experimental tradition, Crumb nevertheless cites Bartók, Debussy and Mahler as major influences.

 

George Crumb is composer in focus at this year’s festival. A series of concerts cover different facets of his work: from his most famous composition, the spectacular ‘electric string quartet’ Black Angels (1970) with its evocative themes, to the recent and masterly American Songbook arrangements, which put familiar melodies in alienating soundscapes. From his kaleidoscopic orchestral work A Haunted Landscape (1984) to his brand new piano cycle Metamorphoses (2017). 

 

Crumb shows he is still one of the most distinctive voices in the contemporary musical landscape.

 

The American composer George Crumb (1929) is considered to be one of the most important musical innovators of our time. He creates distinctive soundscapes through novel playing techniques,

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dates

Sat June 24 2017 7:00 PM

information

  • Duration of performance unknown

related

Landscapes can conjure up intense experiences. Stunning panoramas have inspired many composers to produce great music, from Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony ‘Pastoral’ to the pulsating cityscapes in Steve Reich’s City Life. This concert during the Holland Festival Proms will present the

Landscapes can conjure up intense experiences. Stunning panoramas have inspired many composers to produce great music, from Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony ‘Pastoral’ to the pulsating cityscapes in Steve Reich’s City Life. This concert during the Holland Festival Proms will present the

soundscapes of contemporary composers Kate Moore and George Crumb.

 

Stephen Mackey starts with a short orchestral piece, Lost and Found (1996). ‘I find it fascinating how music can suggest movement’, writes the American composer about his own work. ‘The main thing I’m interested in is the medium in which the musical journey takes place, the auditory topography so to speak’. In Lost and Found, Mackey takes the listener on a road trip through sounds that constantly change their timbre, during which his rock background clearly shows through. This composition is an orchestral version of an earlier solo piece for electric guitar. 

 

In A Haunted Landscape (1983) - his latest orchestral work to date - George Crumb emphasises the idea that particular places on earth are steeped in mystery. The American wrote this work in 1984 for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and expanded the usual setup of the orchestra with exotic percussion and an electrically amplified piano that provides the percussion with extra nuances in timbre. Around a droning, unceasing bass, sounds and noises appear like ghosts out of the darkness. Crumb says himself of A Haunted Landscape: ‘the title reflects my feelings that certain places on planet Earth are imbued with an aura of mystery: I can vividly recall the “shock of recognition” I felt on seeing Andalusia for the first time. I felt a similar sense of déjà vu on visits to Jerusalem and to Delphos in Greece. Even in the West Virginia woods, one senses the ghosts of the vanished Indians’. 

 

Similar themes form the foundation of Sacred Environment (2017) by composer Kate Moore. The Australian-Dutch composer has written an oratory triptych for soprano, didgeridoo, choir and orchestra. In this work she places the spotlight on the Hunter Valley in Australia, territory of the Australian Dharug, Darkinjung and Wonnarua tribes and an area weighted with mythological and spiritual significance that holds special meaning for Moore. In Moore’s post-minimalist score the leading role is given to soprano Alex Oomens, who is immersed in the Australian landscape by means of a virtual reality headset. The audience follows the images, made by filmmaker Ruben van Leer, on a screen and is thus carried along in an audiovisual investigation into the changing meaning of once holy places in our de-mythologised society.

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credits

music Steve Mackey, George Crumb, Kate Moore libretto Kate Moore conductor Brad Lubman choral conductor Daniel Reuss didgeridoo Lies Beijerinck soprano Alex Oomens visual installation Ruben Van Leer coproduction Holland Festival, NTR Radio

This performance is made possible by