The organ concert season in the village church of Pijnacker at the Koningshof opens on Saturday, September 6th, with a performance by the eccentric organist, arranger, and composer Toon Hagen, known for works including the St. Luke Passion.

Toon Hagen is cantor-organist at the Grote Kerk in Zwolle, also known as the St. Michael’s Church. He is also organist at the Grote Kerk in Apeldoorn. In September 2020, he was appointed city organist of Apeldoorn. From this position, he hopes to promote the instrument beyond the ecclesiastical framework.

Toon is a sought-after concert organist and boasts a wide repertoire. In addition to the classical organ repertoire, he regularly programs works by himself and various Dutch composers.

Toon Hagen will perform “Canto Ostinato” in the village church in Pijnacker. A performance of Canto is in many ways an enormous, yet beautiful, musical challenge. The space of a church, the instrument with all the possible timbres from which the performer can draw; all these elements ensure that every performance is unique. Canto Ostinato originated in the early 1970s. It is the most frequently performed work by composer Simeon ten Holt (1923-2012). The work has received considerable acclaim in concert halls, public spaces such as the Groningen train station, and through CD recordings. At first glance, Canto Ostinato already contains the compositional characteristics of twentieth-century minimalist music. However, upon closer inspection, each performance of the work reveals an entirely new conception. Aside from the flexible factors of instrumentation and performance duration, which in practice has varied from one or a few hours to two days, each “cell” of music has no prescribed style, mood, or emotional content. 

Toon Hagen starts Saturday, September 6th, at 3:30 PM in the Dorpskerk at Koningshof in Pijnacker. The plan is for him to play for an hour, but it could also last two days.