Johan Idema, an arts consultant based in the Netherlands, has written and published Present! Rethinking Live Classical Music, a book of case studies about performers, directors, and presenters who are working to reinvent the concert ritual. The 191-page book, funded by the Music Center the Netherlands and the Performing Arts Fund NL (also based in the Netherlands), has a foreword by cultural critic/blogger Norman Lebrecht and documents in text and photos more than 40 innovative classical-music performances from the U.S. and Europe. Among the case studies are “Mail from Mozart” a program by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble featuring Mozart’s Gran Partita that incorporates Mozart’s letters to his father; “Radiale Nacht,” the Mahler Chamber Orchestra’s one-night festival held at the Berlin art complex Radialsystem V; “Water Music,” performed by the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra in the middle of a swimming pool at the Bramley Baths in Leeds (U.K.); and “Swelter,” a spatial brass work performed in New York City’s Central Park during the annual Make Music New York festival. Idema catalogues each performance thematically, from concerts in novel venues to those with film or theatrical accompaniment. For more information, visit the Music Center of the Netherlands website.
Posted July 2, 2012
