The Hague has a new piano series richer. For years the most famous pianists skipped the city, starting this month stars such as Arcadi Volodos, Maria João Pires and Jevgeni Kissin can be heard in the new concert hall Amare in the World Master Pianists series. On November 13, Volodos kicks off the series with a recital with music by Federico Mompou and Aleksandr Skrjabin.
‘The great ones used to come to the Kurhaus in Scheveningen’, explains founder Friso Verschoor (50). ‘Sergei Rachmaninov has also played there. But in the previous room, the Anton Philipszaal, little spectacular happened in the field of piano. I thought that The Hague, as the political capital of the Netherlands, should offer the best quality. I hope I can contribute to Amare’s status as a top podium, the hall deserves that.’
Nevertheless, The Hague was not the first choice for Verschoor. Since 2000 he has worked with the independent Meesterpianisten, one of the most famous concert series in the Netherlands. On Sunday evenings, master pianists rented out the Grote Zaal of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and attracted an audience of their own. In August 2020, impresario Marco Riaskoff announced that the illustrious series would be discontinued. There were already financial problems, corona gave the last push.
‘I tried to take over the series’, says Verschoor. ‘As early as 2019. But the Concertgebouw wanted to organize a piano series itself and not have another game in between.’ That series in the Concertgebouw is called: Grote Pianisten. According to Concertgebouw director Simon Reinink, the building could best organize itself. ‘In retrospect, I can understand it. They captured the moment. I feel no resentment and focus on the future.’
Because of the bond that Verschoor had built up with some piano gods at his last employer, he managed to seduce eight of them to join his new impresario. He now also represents Grigori Sokolov in the Benelux. Will we only hear him in Amare then? ‘No no. If you look realistically: who am I, to stand between such a pianist and the audience he has built up? It’s great if he also plays in Amsterdam, then I’ll arrange it.’
In Amare, Verschoor hopes to at least bring along something of that Master Pianist atmosphere; he now misses that in the Concertgebouw, he says. ‘That atmosphere is mainly in the audience. It takes years to build something like that. The identity was not in the dim light, but in the people. No, I couldn’t bring a customer base, that’s not how it works. We know that there are in any case a lot of piano lovers in The Hague and the surrounding area. The good news for me is that these pianists are already so famous that I don’t need to do much about promotion: just the name is enough.’
How is he going to ensure that identity? ‘In the end it’s the musician who has to do it, it happens on stage. 99% of my work takes place behind the scenes. You have to make sure that the pianist feels at home, that no concessions are made so that he or she can perform optimally. The piano must be fantastically tuned. It was sometimes difficult for Master Pianists to get rehearsal time in the Main Hall at a favorable time, because the Concertgebouw has such a full program. That’s better in Amare.’