Most of the time I’m making things in my studio. Which is really good. But sometimes I’m allowed some downtime after producing all those new notes. Run off and play outside. In that sense the past months felt like a prolonged playtime as great musicians rehearsed and performed more than an hour of my newly composed music.

For instance, on 19 February Trio Mediaeval staged the world premiere of Falling in a jam-packed Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, and over the next couple of days the trio took the work to Tilburg and Heerlen. The concert in Rotterdam was splendid. The trio’s singing added beauty to the piece far beyond what I had imagined when composing; the cathedral acoustics of the Laurenskerk made the sound even more magic and – last but not least – at the stroke of midnight I was treated to a three-part song during the afterparty. The nicest start of a birthday anyone could wish for. Trio Mediaeval asked me to write a new piece of approximately the same length in order to create a diptych.

On 4 and 5 March there was a performance by Margreet Niks of my Solo for Alto Flute during the Cross-Linx Festival in Utrecht (Vredenburg, Leidse Rijn) and Eindhoven (Muziekgebouw Frits Philips), where Lunapark also performed twice for a wildly enthusiastic audience of over 1,000 people. We played one set with Stuart A Staples of Tindersticks for whom Arnold Marinissen and I had specifically orchestrated three songs. I contributed Marseilles Sunshine (look at the video)and arranged the Introduction (video) together with Arnold. During the festival in Eindhoven the public could see and hear my sound-and-lightscape Waxing, Waning in venue the Effenaar. For this specific performance visual artist Jaap van den Elzen used a simple light design with spotlights that gradually changed in colour. Once again lutenist Jozef van Wissem was the soloist. The installation – acting as a counterpart to the Effenaar concert by Tindersticks – was well attended. On the picture you can see the audience chilling out on beanbags.

Falling was performed in another setting by Musa Horti under Peter Dejans in the Arca Thater in Ghent (Belgium) on 10 March during the Voorwaarts Maart / En avant Mars! Festival. For the first time a group of sopranos executed the work. They sung utterly in tune, which is not easy at all. Surprisingly, the choir line-up completely changed the ‘flavour’ of the piece. Hopefully, Musa Hortis will continue to include the composition in its repertoire.

On 11 and 12 March pianist Ralph van Raat and the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO) succesfully played my piano concerto Aerial under the direction of Stefan Vladar.Ralph is a piano colossus. He absolutely made the most out of the concerto. Nothing escaped his attention, he really gave it wings and made it swing – and the NNO under Vladar had mastered Aerial incredibly fast. The audience response was great, especially in the Oosterpoort in Groningen.

Then there was the performance of Tenebrae by Compagnie Bischoff under director Jan Van den Bossche with music composed by Lassus. It took place on 31 March in De Bijloke in Ghent. I had made brief tape music pieces for the intervals between Lassus' Lamentations of Jeremiah that acted as bridges and made the performance gel. In places these Ponts de ténèbres (as they were titled) contrast with Lassus’ introvert music but I did weave the Renaissance polyphony into most of the pieces.

Meanwhile we’ve had the first rehearsals of Welle of Mercy, a new work for choir and string orchestra that I wrote for the Dutch Gregorian Festival in Ravenstein. Two weeks earlier Schola Maastricht and the string orchestra Lundi Bleu had already run through the piece in the Luciakerk where the world premiere will take place on 30 May. On Sunday there will be another tutti rehearsal. I will keep you posted.

By the way, Boosey & Hawkes has added my arrangement of Christiaan Andriessen’s View On the River Amstel to its catalogue. A couple of years ago it included my arrangement of City Life by Steve Reich.
(Translation: Moze Jacobs)