Listening to classical music for college credit. ‘It’s more fun than those boring lectures’

“We are the Storioni Trio, named after the builder of this violin from 1749.” Wouter Vossen, violinist of the Storioni Trio holds up his violin. “He’s a lot older than all of you!”

The sun shines brightly in the reception hall of residential care center Wilgenhof in Eindhoven, a glass front building where about forty residents have gathered, sipping tea and coffee, for what is to come. The Eindhoven Storioni Trio, which organizes its own Storioni Festival every year, decided to start a week earlier this year with free concerts in places with people who do not (anymore) easily come to the concert hall. Nursing homes and the university, in particular.

“Well, let’s get started”, a gentleman grunts who finds violinist Wouter Vossen’s intro talk about Haydn taking too long. But when the trio starts a little later, he sings his own melody to it, conducting with a newspaper. The Trio enjoys playing, including Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Piazzolla. The old grand piano sounds a bit dull and worn, but still cheerfully participates.

“Do you know what this is?” Wouter Vossen holds up his electronic pedal. “We play from iPads these days. That could fit a million music books.” “Sooo!”, the elderly marvel in unison. “And with this pedal I can turn the pages.” “Ooh!” Some residents look at each other in surprise.

Helps with crying

“Hello? Who is that?” In the middle of the construction of the first part of Beethoven’s Geister trio a lady answers her phone loudly. The gentleman with the newspaper has stopped conducting, and is now drumming with excitement for the increasingly ecstatic Beethoven with his fingers on the paper, louder and louder. When the music has passed its peak and settles down again, he stands up and walks away.

But in its place come several others. Throughout the concert, residents continue to queue curiously. After Schumann’s ‘Romanze’, Vossen begins: “The next piece is a bit less tender and romantic.” “Yes, this was tender,” interrupts a lady from the audience. Foxes: “Yes, isn’t it?” Lady: “And you are tender too.” Foxes: “Oh. Thank you.”

“This was very nice,” said one resident afterwards. “It helps with crying. My best friend is dying. When I hear this music, it gives me a little peace.” She used to go to concerts often, but less now, although she still has good mobility. “I’m alone huh. Going to concerts, you don’t do that so easily on your own.”

Also read the review of the festival in 2022: Blackbirds fill the silences left by the flautists at the Storioni Festival

Credits

Half an hour’s walk away, in which the rollator in the street scene gradually gives way to hurried young cyclists, is the Auditorium of Eindhoven University of Technology, where the Trio plays an hour later. The life stage difference between the two locations is nothing short of touching.

A few hundred people have come: in the front are a few rows of older audiences who can still find their way to concert locations. Behind them dozens of students who come to spend their lunch break here. Part of it is because there are credits to be earned by attending these types of activities, though “this is more fun than some boring lectures you have to go to,” admits one student. But others seem to really enjoy it. It is attentively silent for Liszt’s ‘Tristia’ and ‘Modéré’, the first movement of Ravel’s piano trio in A minor. And also for double bassist Sasha Witteveen, who has an impressive solo, The Falling Seagull by Xavier Dubois Foley plays, and to the Maat Saxophone Quartet, which refines Norwegian Dancing of Grieg blows, is listened carefully.

Afterwards, Yaroslav, Ruozhu and Yi He, three students of ‘Data Science and Artificial Intelligence’ and members of ESMG Quadrivium, the Eindhoven student association for classical music enthusiasts, have a chat. Renée, former member who came back for the concert, is there. “Very nice” they all thought it was. Yaroslav adds: “Especially because it was so close. They should do this more often.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhBQgLFfTT4