Tuning the ears with Bas Wiegers

SPIEGELZAAL 13.40-14.05 PM - Frederike Berntsen in conversation with Wilbert Bulsink


Asko|Schönberg presents a very varied program, with soprano Katrien Baerts and conductor Bas Wiegers: new work by Wilbert Bulsink and three 'northerners': Hilli, Tulve and the 'classic' Licks & Brains II by Klas Torstensson.

Focus on Northern European composers
De Volkskrant labeled him "the growth brilliant among the conducting forty-somethings in the Netherlands. The occasion was a concert in the ZaterdagMatinee, in which Bas Wiegers gave a blistering performance of Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. This time Wiegers, with Asko|Schönberg and a circle of well-known specialists, is moving into what is considered his specialty: contemporary music. It promises to be a varied sampling. For example, the Estonian Helena Tulve practices acoustic alchemy with influences from French spectralism, Gregorian chant and Eastern music. Her work Lijnen, on texts by Flemish poet Roland Jooris, brims with iridescent timbral mixtures. The Finn Sebastian Hilli, associating on the word "peach," wants to evoke a feeling "of summer air and light breezes, awakening the senses and radiating the sweetness of a fruit. The oldest work on the program is the labyrinthine "classic" Licks & Brains II (1988) by Dutch Swede Klas Torstensson.

Listening with Wilbert Bulsink
Asko|Schönberg is working on the music of the future and granted a composition commission to Wilbert Bulsink, whose new work aims to invite the audience into contrasting listening positions: "I like compositions in which I have to constantly recalibrate my ears to follow what I am listening to."