Six composers reflect on Sweelinck’s legacy in their own unique way. Sarah Neutkens kicked off with a composition that was inspired by the vocal work of the Orpheus of Amsterdam. Four singers of the Nederlands Kamerkoor will give the first performance.
‘Echo’ for violin and piano by Bianca Bongers is written for Tosca Opdam and Alexander Ullman. It was commissioned by NTR Podium to remember the 400th anniversary of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s passing. It is linked to Sweelinck’s ‘Echo Fantasias’, where he used the different registers of the organ resembling this effect.
Bianca Bongers:
The idea of an echo, which naturally has a spatial character by sound traveling within a certain space, is something very applicable to my way of thinking. In this piece, I was looking for different types of the echo, as ‘an echo on Sweelinck’. To get in touch with the space that surrounded him during his life, I made a walk from his house at Koestraat 15 to the ‘Oude Kerk’ in Amsterdam, where he worked as an organ player for 40 years. This five-minute walk is exactly the time stretch of this piece, that I followed during composing.
World premiere on Friday 7 May, 16:00 – 19:00 live on NTR Podium, Radio 4.
More info about the Sweelinck project
Bianca Bongers at Donemus
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention