“I want music to become part of life again.” A striking statement in an interview with a musician. Certainly in a world in which in 2025 most commuters with headphones are in their own music landscape, and scroll sessions on Instagram and Tiktok are dominated by trending sounds. Brandt Attema (1978) is therefore not referring to the omnipresence of music in our lives, but to actually experiencing it. “I sometimes miss that in the Netherlands,” he says in the café of the Amsterdam stage mosaic, home base of the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (NBE). “You first have to buy an expensive card for classical music, then you have to cross a threshold, and then it is a bit boring, because you have to be quiet. Recently the daughter of a friend in the Concertgebouw responded gently to a very cool solo. Then you immediately hear “ssssst!” I think: let people live, live. I think that’s possible with us. “
‘Ons’ is the Dutch blowers Ensemble where Attema was appointed as artistic director last September. Before that, as a bastrombonist, he was 25 years old core member of the Ensemble. Attema succeeds Hoboist Bart Schneemann (1954), who for the past 36 years set the course at the Blazersclub and gave the programs their recognizable signature: performances with theatrical flair in which baroque pieces of Purcell sound alongside Celtic music, and spiritual music of the Georgian componist Gia Kantsjeli next to Steve Martlands Fusion from Jazz, Rock and minimalism, to name a few. At a concert by the NBE, musicians from various music traditions and from different ousts regularly share the stage: a world card in this season’s brochure shows guest musicians from Benin, Kenya, Georgia, Suriname, Jamaica, China and Mongolia.
At the New Year’s Concert, Attema soloed in an arrangement by Schubert’s moving song Der Doppelgängerabout a figure who realizes that he is looking at himself from death. “It has an intense text. I like to investigate what emotion is in every note. In the classical world one finds one certain sound of the bastrombone beautiful: warm, creamy, dark, such as a baritone singer. That is a very nice sound, a kind of basic language. But in such a song you won’t have enough of that. “
My biggest frustration is that there is not enough time and manpower to perform all our ideas.
At the NBE he was able to further develop those sound options. “I can now be very sad and soft, to very large and hard, to iegig, warm, or greasy. The bastrombone is known for orchestras and big bands, but as a solo and chamber music instrument it is not yet known. In the orchestra you have to do what fits best with the orchestra, the same every day. That is also cool and challenging. But at the NBE I can find my own color more, I like that more and more creatively. ”
No farewell
The change of the guard will have come as a surprise for many visitors. For example, there was no farewell concert where the baton was officially transferred. On the website all concerts suddenly stated a nut: ‘According to the original idea of Bart Schneemann’, without an explanation where Schneemann had stayed.
Behind the scenes played a difference of opinion about the structure of the application procedure. “Apart from the fact that the choice eventually fell on me, the procedure was designed differently than Bart had imagined. Once everything was finished, he said: just get started, I stop. Saying goodbye does not suit him either. ” In a telephone response, Bart Schneemann has indeed confirmed that he had no need for a public farewell ceremony.
Wish list
Attema, who was immersed as a child in the Frisian wind orchestra culture, played for years in the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and is active as a conservatory teacher and room musician. He had the ambition to take the step to artistic leadership ‘absolutely not’. When Schneann announced his departure in 2023, Attema did not immediately raise his name, and was involved in the search for a successor. ”
“I have sometimes wondered if it would be something for me, but I actually always came to the conclusion of not. I thought: I’ve been there for so long, then I will copy Bart. And four major tours and all individual concerts with programs, ideas, concepts: I thought that was a lot. Am I creative enough? But I realized that I am good at bringing people together and not having to think of everything on my own. ”
Attema continues to play in the ensemble and leads the rehearsals. He is not going to challenge the core of the NBE formula. “The DNA of the blower ensemble is in me, so I can hardly think about programs in Barts way. On the one hand, that is a disadvantage. We do not want to lose a regular public. We should not suddenly tackle it 180 degrees differently. “
The current season was still programmed by Schneinnann, although the New Year’s concert broadcast on TV was already from Attema’s tube. On the evening of our conversation, the presentation derived from it will be The ultimate New Year’s concert In Voorpremière, then they tour the country. Attema’s artistic plans will be discussed from next season. It is noticeable that there is enough on his wish list, it is raining ideas.
Make a dance performance for example. The NBE is not standing still anyway – the musicians often play standing and walk through the space – but from Attema a tooth can be added: “I once worked for a trombone dubet with a ballet choreographer. Then I noticed how cool it is to play and move, and to look at it. ” Or a collaboration with harpist Andrew Lawrence-King. “He plays baroque music, but it’s just a pop concert. He’s in that music like that. ”
“But my biggest frustration is that there is not enough time and manpower to perform all our ideas.” An artistic committee has been set up with Attema’s taking advantage of the programming. “Now I am driving the boat for a while, because someone has to make the hours needed to make decisions. But one of my big goals is that within ten years the NBE is a club that, if I fall over tomorrow, is still a club. ”