Composer Kate Moore presents soulmates in Muziekgebouw

Kate Moore’s career is soaring. In 2017 she was the first woman ever to be awarded the prestigious Matthijs Vermeulenprijs, in 2018 she was composer in residence at November Music, for which she composed the grand requiem Lux Aeterna. In the season 2018-19 she is moreover ‘soulmate’ of Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. In this capacity she stages several concerts, featuring not only her own music but also that of kindred spirits.

Kate Moore + Thea Derks at a concert introduction in Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, 2015

On February 7, 2019 Moore presents an adventurous concert with her own Herz Ensemble titled x gen x, in which not one note of herself will sound. This seems typical for Moore – and perhaps her generation – for rather than stressing the differences between personalities and nationalities, she prefers to focus on what we have in common. – As she powerfully illustrated in 2017 in her oratorio Sacred Environments, in which she links a virtual trip to the sacred grounds of the Australian Wonnarua and Darkinjung tribes to Western Requiem music.

For the concert x gen x Moore chose ‘connection’ as its central theme: ‘In a time of unprecedented social and technological transformation, the featured composers see possibilities instead of boundaries’ states the web text. President Trump and other alt-right leaders may wish to build walls to keep foreigners out, in the arts borders and barriers seem to have become irrelevant. Moore is of Dutch-Australian heritage and studied both in Australia and the Netherlands, where she has made her home. The same goes for her colleagues Lam Lai (Hong Kong) and Marie Guilleary (France).

The Dutch Jobina Tinnemans, on the other land, moved from Holland to a peninsula in Wales, where she has lived in self-sufficiency and isolation for ten years now. Her piece Fell was inspired by natural phenomena such as wind and the movement of tectonic plates, and how these affect our physique. The Irish Linda Buckly lives in Glasgow. In Haza she honours the Hungarian Bela Bartók, who spent the last years of his life in the United States.

The American Andrew Norman was inspired by Italian churches in The Companion Guide to Rome. Lachlan Skipworth zooms in on different conceptions of musical time, ranging from Japan to ancient Greece and the original inhabitants of Australia in his Piano Quartet. The Israeli-Dutch Karmit Fadael just finished her bachelor at the Royal Conservatoire. Her piece Blanco simply focusses on musical parameters such as colour, time and space.

I’m really curious to hear this motley collection of pieces!

The concert will be repeated in Korzo Theater The Hague on 14 February.

Aad van Nieuwkerk interviewed Kate Moore in his programme “Vrije Geluiden” on Radio 4. Listen here.

#AndrewNorman #KarmitFadael #KateMoore #LachlanSkipworth #LamLai #LindaBuckly #MarieGuilleary