Wim Boerman (conductor) on the musical process

Dearest Vera

it works!

both the composers finished their pieces, an amazing job by Christiaan who had to get in to the project and finish a piece within a month and did manage almost in time. Benjamin was a bit later and wrote a much more complicated piece for the musicans, so it was hard to have a recording finished in time befor the choreographers satrted to work. This is not a qualification but just a conclusion on the material to cope with; the quality of a piece is not depending on it’s complexity.

Regardless their age we invited two young composers who are already mature composers and quite experienced with larger forms and working with professional musicians. So my talks with them were merely focussed on the extreme circumstances for the performances and this process is still the main subject. The placement of the musicians on the stage the audibilty of the music for dancers and public, also because of the intrinsical qualities of the compositions. So we are now rehearsing and recording at the same time, sometimes bit by bit, to realise a workable recording for the choreographers.

Georg already visited such a rehearsal and I understood that he is quite happy with the music, not being his favorite as what he would choose when in charge, but very suitable and fitting the project. Some small changes and wishes still under discussion, but their atmosphere is  good, so that doesn’t cause any troubles. Main reason is to be aware of the acoustical quality and therefore limitations of the ensemble and limitations of the presence of the sound on the stage with regard to cues, tempo changes, audibility when there are heavy physical movements and so on.

The form of their pieces was discussed between them, of course I urged them to do so and to be very precise, but as long as they seem to communicate I am on the side. Both of the pairs have now a recording which gives a fair impression of the final result and a workable for the rehearsals. If needed we will make a new one as we proceed in preparing the pieces. So we’ll be spending most of our time now rehearsing and Benjamin’s will take still some time because of its textual complexity, although I don’t think that will be noticed by the public.

I expect to see Ivan and Benjamin together next week and I will visit them working with the dancers. I didn’t manage to visit Georg but he seemed quite satisfied and if needed I can still come over to Cologne and see what’s happening.

The musicians are:

Marije van den Berg / Jacqueline van Brink – flute

Hans Witteman – clarinet

Sabine Laar – saxophone

Sjoerd Pauw – trumpet

Jeroen van Dijk – horn

Wilbert Zwier – trombone

Paul Vos / Ezequiel Mealled – electric guitar

Wim Boerman – conductor

On some occasions we have to work with doubles because of the performance dates, so the coming rehearsals will consists of doublings to be ready before we leave for Valencia, because there is no time for rehearsals in between.

 

Well, I hope this enough of an answer for now and hope to meet you very soon again, all the best, wim