Early in the morning the Oude Kerk is a meditative oasis in the city, with an enervating sunrise that casts light through the church’s towering windows. At this early hour you can enjoy the Silence music programme, which provides a contemplative contrast to the normally hectic city centre.

the instrument of troubled dreams
Musicians have been performing concerts at the Oude Kerk for 400 years, usually music in ‘self-contained units’: the hermetical counterpoints of Sweelinck’s choral music, the walls of organ sound of prestigious Bach pieces. Cardiff & Miller’s The Instrument of Troubled Dreams opens up the way people perform and listen to music, creates new spaces and balances sounds with silences. The Silence concerts, curated by Jacob Lekkerkerker, are in keeping with this approach.

silence # 20
During the Silence concert on 5 April, a contrast between two worlds of sound appears. The Instrument of Troubled Dreams by Cardiff & Miller plays the lead in a static work by James Tenney, In a large, open space (1994). In this composition by Tenney (1934-2006), each instrument plays a perfectly intoned “overtone” of a low F. A cyclical movement of perfect harmony that seems to be infinite. In fact, no greater contrast is conceivable between the multitude of sounds from the Instrument of Troubled Dreamsby Cardiff & Miller and the static composition by James Tenney. Yet James Tenney was one of the first composers to make collages by editing samples of existing music, such as an extreme adaptation of material from Elvis Presley in his Collage # 1 from 1961. His work renewed musical thinking about spatiality, harmonic perception, consonance and dissonance – what seems to sound together and what does not.

The musicians of Silence # 20 are Dario Calderone (bass), Pau Sola Masafrets (cello), Oene van Geel (viola), Maya Felixbrodt (viola), Jan Willem van der Ham (bassoon), Jan Bastiani (trombone), Gareth Davis (bass clarinet), María Martínez Ayerza (recorder), Petri Arvo (recorder), Juho Myllylä (recorder), Carole Reis (organ), Jacob Lekkerkerker (mellotron).

More information & tickets

Facebook-event