On and around Saturday, June 21, 2025, the fourth edition of Composer’s Day will take place. Composer’s Day transforms the Netherlands into one big music station. During this national festival, more than twenty participating cities will put their composers in the spotlight with a variety of activities, such as concerts, workshops, and lectures. City composers will create a new City Song for their city. The public can travel from station to station with the New Music NOW Express. Live performances will take place in the train’s carriages and at the stations. Radio station NPO Klassiek and the online music platform newmusicnow.nl will devote plenty of attention to Dutch new music art. Composer’s Day is an initiative of New Music NOW and is unique in Europe.
With Composer’s Day, the Netherlands celebrates the importance, value, and joy of new music. Composers active here and now in our country deserve to be heard much more often. Therefore, the festival highlights them in all their versatility. They are visibly present and approachable to the public, giving workshops and lectures, curating programs, and offering a “peek into their world.” And, of course, their music is heard. Not only in concert halls but also on the streets, at radio and train stations, and on the train itself. With Composer’s Day, New Music NOW aims to spark nothing less than a movement because creation and curiosity belong at the heart of musical life.
Donemus Publishing is a proud partner of the Composer’s Day. One can meet-and-greet and enjoy music of our composers, such as
Bianca Bongers, Aftab Darvishi, Oscar van Dillen, Jan-Peter de Graaff, Simeon ten Holt, Andreas Kunstein, Vanessa Lann, Tilen Lebar, Aspasia Nasopoulou, Kris Oelbrandt, Christina Oorebeek, Martijn Padding, Wilma Pistorius, Joey Roukens, Maxim Shalygin, Nicoline Soeter, Saskia Venegas, Boudewijn Tarenskeen, Jacob TV and Lucas Wiegerink.
The specially chartered bright red music train, the New Music NOW Express, connects the national program and draws a trail of new music across the country. The train stops at five stations: Amsterdam, Arnhem, Utrecht, Rotterdam, The Hague, and returns to Utrecht. On board, there will be plenty of live performances by emerging and renowned composers; the audience sits side by side with musicians and composers in the train carriages.
In the five cities where the New Music NOW Express stops, special City Composers will be appointed. They will compose a new City Song that will premiere during the festive Station Concert, featuring choirs, ensembles, conservatories, and other organizations in each city. Amongst the specially appointed City Composers are Maxim Shalygin (The Hague) and Saskia Venegas (Rotterdam).
At The Hague Central Station, a new composition by Ukrainian-Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin, “Burlesque on the Death of a Dictator,” will be performed by 9×13 Neo Fanfare. Later that day, at 20.15 in the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, there will be a performance of SONGLESSNESS by organist Geerten Van de Wetering and the Amstel Quartet.
Belgian/Basque/Dutch composer Saskia Venegas is Rotterdam’s City Composer. She is writing a tribute to the city, the port, and the people of Rotterdam for Rotterdam’s choir and the Basque percussion instrument txalaparta. Rotterdam will present a musical city route along studios, workshops, concert halls, churches, and neighborhood stages.
Check full Composer’s Day 2025 program:
https://newmusicnow.nl/dagvandecomponist/
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention