Two true veterans, jointly 150 years old.

Ab Baars | Ig Henneman
150 @ Wels unlimited

https://abbaars.bandcamp.com/album/150-wels-unlimited-2025

#music #jazz #improvisation #avantgarde #modernclassical #abbaars #ighenneman #duo

Ig Henneman – tireless improviser and composer

On 21 December Ig Henneman (1945) celebrates her 76th birthday. In September 2021 the adventurous vio(lin)ist, improviser, composer and feminist was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau for her contribution to the rich Dutch musical life. She still tirelessly continues performing and composing. A nice occasion to re-post my review of her CD Indigo that was released in 1998.

Amsterdam, 25 January 1999

One hundred (and one) years ago, the National Exhibition of Women’s Labour was held in The Hague. The aim was to break through the prevailing view that a woman could only fulfil subservient tasks. The ‘weaker sex’ became increasingly self-aware and also demanded an independent position in the creative professions.

Therefore, during the exhibition, many compositions by women were performed. They considered themselves professional composers, as evidenced by their membership of the Genootschap Nederlandse Componisten, but their work was only performed on special occasions around the theme of ‘women’.

Not much has changed since then: although the Netherlands has several interesting female composers, they are rarely heard on the concert stage, not to mention in CD releases.

That is why the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment declared 1998 to be the commemoration year of the above exhibition, with events throughout the Netherlands. In 1898 Cornélie van Oosterzee composed a cantata for the opening, this time viola player and composer Ig Henneman was commissioned to write music for the closing event.

Commemoration of the National Exhibition of Women’s Labour

This took place last November in congress centre the RAI in Amsterdam, and was recorded on the CD Indigo. Henneman is one of the few women who have managed to gain a foothold on the Dutch concert stage since the 1970s and this is largely due to the fact that she performs her own work and releases it on her own label Wig.

For this project, she was inspired by the poetry of women such as Henriëtte Roland Holst, Ida Gerhardt and Albertina Soepboer, which in more or less explicit terms testify to the unease they feel with the role that is forced upon them. Holst’s resigned, but under the skin angry words O dark depths are captured in music that initially sounds light and airy, but soon becomes violent and dramatic.

In Den Haag 1898, a text that denounces the exploitation of women in sewing workshops, we hear the machines rattling and jamming, while the singing refers to socialist battle songs. Nachtzwart (Nightblack) based on Van Oosterzee’s cantata, breathes a dark atmosphere, while in Ontkomen (Escape) a claustrophobic feeling is aroused by long, solemn lines from which the voice cannot escape.

The title track Indigo is mysterious and charged, with alternating whispers and screams, blurring the boundaries between voices and instruments. Femina’s amusingly ironic tone is translated into cheerfully repeated runs in a swinging rhythm, in which clarinet and bass clarinet aptly imitate animal sounds. As always, Henneman gives her musicians plenty of room to improvise.

Yesterday’s future is still a long way off, but as long as we can still laugh, there is hope, Henneman tells us. And right she is!

#IgHenneman #IgHennemanTentet #WigLabel