With some people you would love to peek inside the head for fifteen minutes. Thomas Beijer, recently awarded the Dutch Music Prize, is pre-eminently such a person. Pianist, novelist, animator, composer – Beijer is and can do it all, and then also very well.
Read also this interview with Thomas Beijer
What is a dry biographical fact on paper, came to life on Friday evening with the world premiere of his new Concerto in Technicolor for jazz violinist Julia Philippens – also known as the front woman of crossover band Fuse (ao a lot to see in Podium Witteman†
Musical ICE ride
The concert, a wish fulfilled by Philippens, cannot be captured in some concise sentences. In twenty minutes, Philippens (on amplified violin) takes you on a musical ICE ride past various stations – some visited several times – and passing extremely diverse landscapes. Hey, does that sound like a mambo? No, it’s a wave to Charlie Parker. Or no, wait, to Bernstein. And Poulenc! Nice, that improvisation above an irregularly pulsating double bass. After which the orchestra suddenly plays a sunny chord in which it merges with Philippens and changes to lead gray and a tragic cantilene wells up – with electric guitar. What is next? A primal dance in rut, a playful interaction of woodblock with sax and then suddenly a thoughtful passage that really, really touches you. wonderful.
The excellent Julia Philippens was able to fully enjoy her virtuosity on it. But the thoughts afterwards mainly went to Thomas Beijer, whose concert convinced that a requiem, a yell for the F-side of Ajax and a finely drawn violin sonata are also hidden in his pen.
Tango
The Noord Nederlands Orkest did not convince everywhere in the short, festival-like concert of just under an hour. Under conductor Clark Rundell missed warm-up Red Cape Tango sensuality and sophistication. Three short, eclectic pieces by Benjamin Yusupov were an excellent fit, but you actually preferred it Concerto in Technicolor heard in full again. To find out whether the rollercoaster-like feeling would then continue, or whether the wealth of ideas of Beijer’s wide-spreading brain just needs to sink in for a while.