Music for Leisure
The VU Chamber choir exists 50 years. Last December we recorded their concert titled Utopia 2068. Four composers were asked to compose a work on a libretto by writer Wytske Versteeg. She processed the visions of the future by the current choir members into a libretto about the future. Utopia 2068. By then, the current singers will be old and seniors, what will their world look like by then?
Roel van Oosten, Merlijn Twaalfhoven, Ernst Reijseger and Imre Ploeg each sketched a possible vision of the future, from dystopia to utopia.
1. Imre Ploeg (1990) – Wat gezegd moet worden is dit (2018)
2. Ernst Reijseger (1954) – Ooit was elk woord een lied (2018)
3. Roel van Oosten (1958) – Utopia (2018)
4. Merlijn Twaalfhoven (1976) – Gras dat niet bezeten is (2018)
5. Peteris Vasks (1946) – Madrigals (2001)
VU Chamber choir conducted by Krista Audere
Concertzender recording 8-12-2019 Dominicuskerk Amsterdam technique Joost Kist,
In the work by Imre Ploeg, Wat gezegd moet worden dat is dit, there is not only space for the things that pass, but also for what will always remain: love and humanity. Ernst Reijseger sketches in Ooit was elk woord een lied, a dark future filled with diseases. Are you still able to sing in a world full of deadly virusses? But who knows, we might succeed in not letting it become so dangerous. Roel van Oosten sketches a careful and optimistic vision of the future in Utopia: will there be a turning point? Merlijn Twaalfhoven conceptualizes in Gras dat niet bezeten is climate change by transforming the measurements of temperature by NASA from 1880 until now into music. The listener is asked to ponder about the ever further warming of the earth and the rise of the sea level: will we be up to our necks in the warm water?
