Saskia Lankhoorn new curator of Dag in de Branding Festival

The multifaceted and idiosyncratic pianist Saskia Lankhoorn (1979) plays an active role in the contemporary music scene for both solo and chamber music. She has performed with ensembles like Asko|Schönberg, ELECTRA and Slagwerk Den Haag and as a co-founder of Klang is closely affiliated with the ensemble. Saskia also has a piano duo, X88, with the Canadian pianist Vicky Chow, who is known for her association with the Bang on a Can All Stars. Saskia Lankhoorn graduated from the Royal Conservatoire and has strong ties with The Hague.

The first edition of the 2017-2018 Dag in de Branding Festival on Saturday 14 October is an ode to the pianist. Although Saskia Lankhoorn will also be performing, she particularly wants to feature fellow pianists, such as Michael Hersch and the renowned Michael Riesman, who is Philip Glass’s right-hand man. He is the musical director of the Philip Glass Ensemble and has conducted all of Glass’s film scores.

Lankhoorn believes that music by Glass reflects a significant and currently prevailing trend: looking for length and spatiality in music. ‘Minimalism in a new form is back’, she says. ‘Just look at all the minimal music festivals. Audiences long for a kind of prolongation, for longer pieces involving the perception of time and the experience of time. It is a hankering after a different world – much in the same way as a smartphone giving immediate access to all kinds of worlds. The universe evoked by minimal music means you can look at musical patterns through a magnifying glass, you can experience established musical effects as though new and you can see the fascinating way they are constructed. The approach is almost scientific, but the goal is a different experience of time.’

The Dag in de Branding Festival will take place this season on Saturday 14 October 2017, Saturday 2 December 2017, Saturday 10 March 2018 and Saturday 26 May 2018. The March edition will be Lankhoorn’s first own brainchild. In the ensuing two seasons of the Dag in de Branding Festival, she wishes to showcase new developments in twenty-first century music. Key words will be: length and spatiality in music, interdisciplinary aspects, contrast, flexibility (of musicians and audiences alike) and intimacy.

PROGRAMME SAT 14 OCTOBER

13.00 KORZO
Roi Nachshon – Percano
Kluster5

14.00 NIEUWE KERK
Philip Glass – Two etudes

Philip Glass – Suite from Dracula
Philip Glass – Two etudes
Philip Glass – Suite from The Hours
Kate Moore – Sensitive Spot
Cello8tet Amsterdam

Michael Riesman, pianist
piano students from the Royal Conservatoire

16.00 PULCHRI
John Luther Adams – Four Thousand Holes
Mayke Nas – Douze Mains

Michael Gordon – Hyper

Ensemble Klang

17.30 NIEUWE KERK
Michael Hersch – selection from The Vanishing Pavilions
Michael Hersch

20.00 ROYAL CONSERVATOIRE
Roi Nachshon – Wagen Volgeladen
Kluster5

20.30 ROYAL CONSERVATOIRE - ARNOLD SCHÖNBERGZAAL
Mozart/Kattenburg – Fantasia
Sebastiano Evangelista – new work
Ton de Leeuw – The Nine Rasas
Ton de Leeuw – Piano concert
 (1948, world premiere)

Adam Hakooz – new work
Beethoven – Symphony no. 2
Residentie Orkest

Ralph van Raat, piano

Ed Spanjaard, conductor