‘Super kaleidoscopic’ is how Michel van der Aa describes a programme he has curated for the ensemble Nieuw Amsterdams Peil. Devised for the ensemble’s 2018 Spotlight series, it includes chamber works by Van der Aa, as well as by composers he is inspired by. Van der Aa himself will also play guitar (acoustic and electric) in three pieces.
The concerts include Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s mistily dramatic Luminance, from her ensemble work In the Light of Air; Dieter Ammann’s punchy Après le silence; and Anna Meredith’s Tuggemo, written for the Kronos Quartet and inspired by 80s pop synthesizers. Also featured is a world premiere by the young Dutch composer and intermedia artist Thomas Bensdorp, Private Geographies #1: The House of Breath.
Van der Aa’s music will be featured in three pieces of his: Dormant, a very early work here receiving its first performances; Transit, for piano and video; and the song cycle For the Time Being, the first movement of which will also be receiving its premiere. For the Time Being will be given in a new arrangement for the Dutch singer-songwriter Wende (Quand tu dors, Last Resistance), and she and Van der Aa will close the concerts with five new songs they have written together, on texts by Dimitri Verhulst, Fernando Pessoa and Raphaële Lanadère.