In the press she’s been called (Gillian) ‘Welch’s lost young daughter’ 🙂 Bluegrass-country-folk songwriter Sarah Jarosz – a Texan teen, born in 1991 – is still very young and a huge talent. Her breakthrough album ‘Song Up In Her Head’, released in the summer of 2009, was now given a five star ‘top of the world’-review in Songlines (September 2010) by reviewer Rose Skelton who uses superlatives like ‘supertalent’, ‘fabulous moments’ and ‘exceptional piece of work’. On YouTube I found this track from Sarah Jarosz’s celebrated album, titled Shankill Butchers, a song she covered from The Decemberists. All the other tracks she wrote herself. Great to hear this new young talent.
Tag Archives: Pieter de Rooij
Balinese gamelan: Lotring tribute video with footage + music from 1972
I guess with the upcoming second edition of the IGFA (International Gamelan Festival Amsterdam) in september 2010, gamelan is more on my mind these days – and btw, in the past I played Balinese and Javanese gamelan for almost twenty years – maybe that explains why I couldn’t resist making this Lotring-tribute video 🙂
The video contains footage of legendary Balinese musician I Wayan Lotring (1898-1983) dancing and playing in 1972. I combined this footage with a segment of Lotring’s composition ‘Liar Samas’, played by himself and his orchestra in 1972. You can find the complete recording on a marvellous 2cd-album, released by Ocora, titled ‘Hommage a Wayan Lotring’, an album I highly recommend, a very worthwhile buy if you like gamelan music from Bali.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s Lotring was an absolute sensation on Bali, revolutionising musical form of gamelan pieces on kebyar, pelegongan and gender wayang, and in so doing paving the way for others on Bali to take gamelan into new directions.
I would expect Canadian composer Colin McPhee to have filmed him in the 1930’s but haven’t seen that footage (I’ve only seen a few photographs of Lotring by McPhee). In his book ‘A House in Bali’ McPhee meets Lotring and even devotes a chapter to him. A nice read that brings you in the midst of musical history on Bali.
Natacha Atlas releases new album ‘Mounqaliba’ in September 2010
Natacha Atlas is a great singer. I remember her solo debut album ‘Diaspora’ was one of my favourites in 1994. Through the years she made a lot of other great albums and now there’s a new one on its way, to be released in September.
I look forward to the release of Mounqaliba, where – as is explained in the video below – she explores links between Western classical music and Arabic classical music, ‘blending Middle Eastern, African and European sounds. Mounqaliba features new songs written in classical Arabic by Atlas and collaborator Samy Bishai, who learned violin from Russians and Armenians in Egypt. Atlas’ multicultural background – half Moroccan/Egyptian/Palestinian and half British and largely raised in Belgium – plays out in her genre-bending music, with its appreciation of Western electronic music and pop alongside a thorough grounding in Arabic musical traditions. For the new record, Altas had ambitious intentions: “What I hope I have achieved is to match the lyricism of classical music with the inherent poetry of Arabic… To create a melange of ideas and examined opposites.” Mounqaliba will release 21 September via Six Degrees Records.’ (quoted text from: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/30/2992535/riff-report-new-music-this-week.html#ixzz0yE48cYHU )
Natacha Atlas explains about the upcoming release of Mounqaliba
One of Natacha Atlas’ lovely dance hits, Mon Amie La Rose
Valentina Lisitsa / livestream webcast recording sessions 24 Etudes Chopin
On August 17th, 18th and 19th 2010 I attended in the Beethovensaal in Hannover Valentina Lisitsa’s rehearsal (17th) and recording sessions (18th and 19th) of the 24 Etudes of Chopin. While a live-webstream was running during Valentina’s playing and Alexei (Valentina’s husband) was putting it on his cameras, I did some webhosting and on the 17th I also filmed some of the rehearsing.
In the upstairs studio there was producer Michael Fine, assisted by Tammy Fine and sound engineer Wolf-Dieter Karwatky.
Valentina and producer Michael Fine
Alexei (Valentina’s husband), Valentina and producer Michael Fine
Valentina played on a veery beautiful Steinway D Hamburg, prepared and taken care off by piano technician Gerd Finkenstein.
Valentina in the Beethovensaal in Hannover
The 24 Etudes were played by Valentina with great artistic depth and a deep understanding of Chopin. There were tiny details and truly magnificent colours that I had not heard before in her playing of the Etudes. Truly amazing!
Me and Valentina during a coffee break
Valentina and the whole crew really loved the wonderful response from the livestream webcast’s visitors.
Right after finishing the recordings Valentina takes a look into the chatroom and starts chatting
As soon as Valentina had finished Op.25-12 she switched to another keyboard and entered the chatroom for a final talk with the viewers and ‘followers’. Big Fun for evryone ! 🙂
Valentina Lisitsa : solo takes Rachmaninoff #4
On August 7th, 2010, I’ve published two new videos on my YouTubechannel with another 18 minutes of some exquisite playing by Valentina Lisitsa, filmed by me in London, Abbey Road Studios, December 6th, 2009.
It’s some of my footage of Valentina doing solo take recordings of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.4, as part of her Rachmaninoff Project with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), conducted by Michael Francis and produced by Michael Fine.
For this project with the LSO – that’s bound for release by the end of 2010 – Valentina recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London Rachmaninoff’s four piano concertos and Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Variations in September 2009 (piano concerti 1 and 2), in December 2009 (piano concerti 3 and 4) and in March 2010 (Paganini Variations).
If you like Rachmaninoff you can’t afford missing Valentina’s exquisite, brilliant, electrifying and delicate ‘Rachy touch’. Listen and enjoy! 🙂
British newspaper recognises stature of dutch radio pioneer Ate Doornbosch
It’s quite amazing that the best newspaper coverage on the demise of dutch folksong collector and radiomaker Ate Doornbosch (1926-2010) comes from an overseas neighbour: British music journalist Ken Hunt wrote an excellent obituary about Ate Doornbosch for the British newspaper The Independent. To read this obituary, click here.
I think it’s regrettable that the dutch national NOS Journaal of public television broadcasting didn’t report on television on Ate Doornbosch’s passing away.
Ate Doornbosch, busy transcribing
Of the big dutch newspapers (Telegraaf, Volkskrant, Parool, Trouw, NRC) only NRC published a short obituary. Still, without any doubt Ate Doornbosch was a figure of national importance. He became famous with his radio programme ‘Onder de Groene Linde’, that ran 1316 times between 1957 and 1993 and in its heydays attracted 350.000 listeners per episode. It was the longest running radio programme ever on dutch national radio.
Ate Doornbosch recording old dutch folksongs at the people’s homes
“Few folk-song collectors anywhere match Doornbosch’s achievement, the public face of which was the long-running radio series Onder de Groene Linde (“Under the green linden”) and “his work was fairly compared to that of the US collector Alan Lomax”, writes British music journalist Ken Hunt about Ate Doornbosch in the aforementioned obituary.
It’s great to see that a foreign newspaper fully recognises the meaning and stature of the pioneering work of Ate Doornbosch. Here’s the link to the obituary once more.
Ate Doornbosch in 1990
* outside of the dutch press and media the only extensive dutch obituary I found is this one, written by professor Louis Grijp of the Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam.
Valentina Lisitsa practices live on the web until Independance Day
I don’t think any of the world’s best classical pianists has ever done this… but she does. Out of loyalty and gratitude to her worldwide following Valentina Lisitsa is running a live webcam inside her practice studio at home until the 4th of July (midnight to be exact).
Buffy, one of Valentina’s cats, joined in at some point and started a piano duet… what a treat! 🙂
The use of technology to connect with an audience, like no other pianist Valentina Lisitsa knows how to do this. Her live-rehearsals involve working on recital and concert programmes that she has to perform next month. The number of pieces she’s working on in these rehearsals: 55 ! That’s FIFTY-FIVE, yes, and more than half of the material is Continue reading
Valentina Lisitsa: Rachmaninoff/Warenberg Piano Concerto #5 2nd Movement
Now Listen to this!
Valentina Lisitsa plays the theme of the Rachmaninoff/Warenberg ‘5th’ Piano Concerto’s 2nd movement, recorded in Amsterdam. A very beautiful interpretation, that imho combines and fuses a poetic delicacy with soulful temperament and powerful passion that only Valentina can bring out to the listener. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her playing here as much as I do.
This piano concerto is an arrangement by Alexander Warenberg of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Symphony. The recording presented here is used with permission and part of video-material shot by Alexei Kuznetsoff (Valentina’s husband) in Amsterdam, May 2010, that features Valentina playing piano solo parts of the Rachmaninoff/Warenberg Piano Concerto #5.
Valentina was performing in The Netherlands in May 2010. On 29 May 2010 I did a video-interview with Valentina in Rotterdam on the Rachmaninoff/Warenberg 5th Piano Concerto after she played the concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on 28 May 2010.
Me and Valentina after the interview in Rotterdam
I will present this interview in a video-report later on this year combined with the video-material, shot in Amsterdam, of Valentina playing piano solo parts of the ‘5th’ concerto.
Artikel uit 1986 bepleit neuroantropologische kijk op ritueel gedrag
In 1985 volgde ik als 21-jarige derdejaars-student antropologie een boeiend thematisch studieonderdeel: ‘Body & Mind’. Voor de Body & Mind werkgroep schreef ik een artikel over een neuroantropologische kijk op ritueel gedrag, toegespitst op Soefi-zikr-rituelen. In 1986 werd het geplaatst in het gerenommeerde ‘Sociologisch Tijdschrift’, een wetenschapstijdschrift dat normaliter nooit werk van studenten publiceert. Die eer viel mij wel te beurt. In het artikel vestig ik aandacht op de vraag hoe tijdens (religieuze) rituelen bepaalde (vaak van jongs af aangeleerde) ‘technieken van het lichaam’ worden ingezet die blijkbaar regelrecht in verband staan met de totstandkoming van transcendente (religieuze) ervaringen van deelnemers aan die rituelen. Klik hier om het artikel te lezen.
Om een en ander aanschouwelijk te maken, hieronder een filmpje van YouTube, met overigens beelden en taferelen die als schokkend kunnen worden ervaren…
Twee jaar na publicatie van dit artikel studeerde ik af op een heel ander onderwerp: opera. Ook heel leuk en boeiend!
Halloween Concert Valentina Lisitsa in Leiden 31-10-2010
Voor wie het aandurft… op 31 oktober 2010 gaat het spoken in de Leidse Waag en klinken de engste klassieke composities in een HALLOWEEN CONCERT met daredevil-pianiste VALENTINA LISITSA ! Kaartverkoop via de Stadsgehoorzaal Leiden.
Klik enkele malen op de foto hierboven om het concertprogramma te vergroten
De Waag in Leiden