Holland Festival Proms: We Came In Peace For All Mankind

Twelve concert grand pianos will be placed in a circle in The Concertgebouw’s Main Hall. Instead of being played with their keys, they will be resonance boxes for twelve horn players. The Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason conceived this unusual musical setup, which will have its world premiere at the Holland Festival Proms. Bjarnason’s work has sometimes been described as ‘alchemy’. He blurs the boundaries between acoustic and electronic music with his accessible experimentation. This is his newest work: a modern ritual. Playing the horns beneath the lids of the grand pianos makes the piano strings vibrate, creating sounds that deepen and amplify the horns’ sounds in various ways. Music that you have to experience to believe.