If you are interested in how contemporary music is being written by the new generation of international composers, then you should visit the Spring Festival 2011. This exciting festival is organized each year by the composition department of the KC and has a long tradition that encompasses around 40 years. During one week the students present their own works together with the works of teachers and guests. There are concerts workshops and masterclasses. A wide range of music is presented: from chamber music to pieces for big ensembles, from live electronics to music theater.
During the 2011 edition of the Spring Festival you will listen besides a great number of ensembles and soloists from the Conservatorium, also performances from ensembles such as the Asko|Schoenberg ensemble and music theater from the Ligeti ensemble. Also the results from the joint efforts between composition students and harp players and singers will be presented.
This year it is important to highlight the performance of the Ensemble Royaal. This ensemble was founded 15 years ago by the composition department and it specializes in the performance of masterworks from the 20th century and also in performing the works by composition students. This year, they bring an interesting programme that is also part of the festival “Mahler in Den Haag”
Gustav Mahler enjoys great popularity in Europe. As composer, he is frequently a victim of conductors that only bring out the pompous aspect of his music, as a way to benefit themselves and to please their own ego. However, by doing so many progressive and advanced aspects of his music remain unnoticed. Almost at the same time than Charles Ives, Mahler was experimenting with complex structures where different layers of music sounded at the same time. Furthermore, he was ahead of his time as an eccletic or collage composer. In his ninth and what he left finished of his tenth symphony we can find traces of what later Anton Webern would do in his revolucionary music.
For this occasion, composition students under guidance of Diderik Wagenaar, were given the task of re-working several early Mahler's lieder. The arrengements range from pure orcherstrations to completely new compositions where only a hint of the original song is present. This programme is complemented with the beatiful arrangement make by conductor/composer Reinbert de Leeuw of Anton Webern's Passacaglia. The initiative for this project came from musicologist Eveline Nikkels (chairman of the Mahler's society), who also gave the students lectures over unexplored aspects in Mahler's music. Jurjen Hempel is the musical conductor.