Concertzender Newsletter

Editorial

The Concertzender in September 2020

Spain is going red, but you needn’t miss anything . This month the Concertzender is paying extra attention to Manuel De Falla. There’s also a lot of coverage of jazz, from Bird (who would have been 100 this month had he not died) to Sung-Mi Hung.

And because of course it’s September, we’re kicking off the new culture season with 2 brand new programmes from the Crosslinks editors. The temperature inside our presenters studio has slowy dropped below 40, we’re psyched and wish you a lot of listening pleasure.

See you next month!

From Thursday 10th and Sunday 27th September 2020

Theme: Crosslinks

New from Crosslinks: Re:light and Resonator

Crosslinks is doing well. Our programmes are attracting more and more listeners on international radio podia. So foreign producers are increasingy asking if they can work with the Crosslinks team. The world of new music is a world wide event and increasingly takes place across digital platforms and networks.

Yannis Kotsonis Of course we keep a close eye on what’s going on there, but we’re also selective about what might be of artistic interest and fits in with the Concertzender. We keep up with news, but don’t get carried along with the hypes about commercially attractive genres, particularly in pop culture. We try to distinguish ourselves with productions you’re not likely to find on other channels.

Re:light
In September we’re starting Re:light, a new programme providing a platform for network-radio productions, broadcast every second Thursday of the month at 23:00. Radio productions which can be heard on other platforms, always focussed on new contemporary adventurous music. The first broadcast will be on 10th September, with a series of programmes specially made for the Concertzender by Nico de Rooij.

Nico De Rooij
Nico de Rooij has been working for 20 years with leading composers as designer and lighting developer. In the process of realising the visualaspects of live shows De Rooij finds it important to penetrate deeply into the work and thought patterns of the composer in order to get a good picture of the music.

Theme: Jazz

Composer: Charlie Parker

A Bird named Charlie

Charlie Parker was born 100 years ago on August 29. Charles Christopher Parker Junior, better known as ‘Bird’, was one of the most important names in the transition from traditional to modern jazz. Charlie Parker influenced generations of saxophonists, and other musicians, both during his lifetime and afterwards, and both positively and negatively.

Positively because of his enormous creativity as a musician, negatively because of his enormous drug intake. Charlie Parker died on March 12 1955 at the tragically early age of 34.

Concertzender Live is broadcasting live recordings of Charlie Parker’s Quintet that were recorded in the ‘Royal Roost’ in New York (Radio broadcasts from 1948), recordings from the Carnegie Hall with Dizzy Gillespie (1947), Parker with strings (1950) and a late-night Jazz at the Philharmonic concert from 1949, also recorded at Carnegie Hall. You can listen to the broadcast from last Saturday here.

Saturday October 10th 2020

Theme: Jazz

The Corona concerts in TivoliVredenburg

An initial series of ‘trial’ concerts has taken place in TivoliVredenburg. One group, three performances of 30 minutes, 30 people for each concert and in the main hall. It felt strange and it was also strange, but that had no effect on the music. The Concertzender was present at the first Jazz concert.

Sun-Mi Hong Tineke Postma’s Bloom Trio performed on June 7th. A second series of concerts was given the title ‘Walk the Line’. This is a more extensive programme. Three ensembles, three afternoon concerts and three evening concerts in three halls and now 40 people in the hall for each concert. The Concertzender was also present during some of these concerts. On July 19, the Concertgebouw Jazz Orchestra played a programme with the title Crossroads that featured guest soloists Joris Roelofs, Kika Sprangers and Martijn van Iterson. We recorded the three afternoon concerts for broadcast at a later date, probably on October 10th in the Concertzender Live programme.

Sun-Mi Hung
In the evening programme we recorded the performance by the Sun-Mi Hong Quintet. Sun-Mi Hong, the Korean drummer who studied at the Conservatory in Amsterdam, has put together a very international ensemble with the Scottish trumpet player Alister Payne, the Italian tenor saxophonist Nicolo Ricci, the Korean pianist Young-Woo Lee and the Italian bass player Allessandro Fungaro. The quintet plays adventurous music that sometimes includes a flash of hard bop amidst an otherwise contemporary sound built upon Sun-Mi Hung’s Asian, European and African-American percussion.

Every September 2020 weekday

Theme: Classical Music

Composer: Manuel de Falla

Composer of the month: De Falla

Our composer of the month in October is Manuel de Falla. Together with Granados and Albeniz, De Falla was one of the important advocates of Spanish music both at home and abroad. Folk music almost always plays a role in his works. That is noteworthy because during De Falla’s lifetime, from 1867 to 1947, Spain was anything but a unified state, neither politically nor artistically.

Extreme conservatism and religious devotion went hand in hand with anarchism, absurdism and communism. If you are looking for ideology in its sharpest and deadliest form, look to this period in Spanish history. De Falla himself was a Catalan, but studied in Madrid and considered himself to be a Spaniard. That attitude is reflected in, among other things, one of his most famous works, Seven Spanish Folksongs. Spaniards hear the music of the provinces, we hear the music of Spain.

Although many of his works became popular precisely because of their Spanish character, De Falla was also looking for a personal touch. His piano works from the first decade of the 20th century are an example of this. Debussy ensured that they were published.

Listen:
Every September weekday from 16:00 to 17:00 hrs.