Sor is doing well, Amadeus considerably less so. Sor (25, real name Rosario Mussendijk) is a mouthful (rapper, producer, keyboardist, composer and conductor) and has an album presentation planned. Amadeus is a houseplant with yellow leaves. Worryingly yellow. Sor feels responsible, and rightly so: it was he who sealed Amadeus’ fate by separating him from his green brothers and sisters at the Intratuin and giving him a place on his cupboard in his apartment. It has been there for a while now, next to Johannes (Brahms) and Ludwig (van Beethoven). Big names for small yet green life – at least, well, as long as that life lasts, that is. “I thought Amadeus couldn’t die,” Sor says, in an almost fatherly way: he’s not angry, but disappointed. “But maybe I’m wrong.”
A possible rescue is close at hand: anyone who thought that Sor is only handy with a microphone or produce set underestimates him. With flexibility he cuts away all the yellowness that is playing tricks on Amadeus. “Hopefully he’ll fall for it. Such a greatness should not die.’
Sor likes classical music, and he combines this style with hip-hop in his show at the end of May in the Concertgebouw. He will also conduct, he learned that if Maestrowinner, ‘I’m really hard on that’. A grin, a row of silver teeth, Prodent might not sign for it, but it’s Sor’s trademark; even his mother likes it. What his mother (‘really a sweet woman’) also likes: his new album, Bae Doven† Part I is already out, part II and III will follow, and his mother likes that too, of course she likes it. The title is a respectful nod to Beethoven, the composer who is his example, and who was a genius, and who was deaf, and struggled with that – a struggle Sor recognizes painfully well after things suddenly went wrong in his own ears four years ago. Some of his hearing has returned, although he still needs help from hearing aids. But: ‘I can live to 100 with it.’
That is something Amadeus cannot say.