In collaboration with composers and musicians, the chamber choir JIP is performing a program that consists entirely of new music written especially for JIP. It will perform this at, among other things, the Day of the Composer and the Gaudeamus Music Week.

It is now almost ten years ago that Jonathan and Imre Ploeg, together with a couple of singing friends, decided to set up Kamerkoor JIP. A lot has happened since then. JIP20 marks the passing of a decade in which the choir has evolved from a makeshift club of students into a celebrated institution in the choir world.

For this jubilee project, composers Gerard Beljon, Oene van Geel and Antonio Moreno Glazkov, together with three up-and-coming composers, are writing in collaboration with Gaudeamus new works on the theme of ‘the individual and the collective’, in which Western and Eastern music traditions are connected. The composers bring a wide variety of excellent international musicians who will perform solos in the choral works. It promises to be an impressive set.

JIP also collaborates with leading festivals, such as the Day of the Composer on June 17 in Utrecht and the Culture Unlimited Festival. In September 2023, they will perform with their program in the Gaudeamus Festival.

In short, it will be a JIP project that you should not miss!

Gerard Beljon composes his piece from the individual voices of the choir members: by compiling individual recordings of the singers, he writes a new composition for the choir. Personal music taste and sound of the choir members form the direct basis for the music that we will sing. He comes by during the rehearsal process to work with the singers. Gerard is inspired by the Arabic music tradition and the contrast with the choir’s mostly Western music influences.