Earlier this month, I had a fantastic time playing solo concerts at two festivals in The Netherlands: the Soundsofmusic Festival in Groningen and LeGuessWho in Utrecht. It was my first time performing in that country. The audiences were terrific, attentive and eager to listen, responding enthusiastically. 

Soundsofmusic is a contemporary classical music festival in Groningen, a few hours north of Amsterdam. I played in the beautiful and simple wooden Luthersekerk. The festival suggested doing a stylistically varied program so I played Iannis Xenakis’ “Mikka S”, Michael Hersch’s “the weather and landscape are on our side”, Aida Shirazi “longing for a distant memory”, “Charged” by Anna Meredith (the festival’s featured composer), and “Hammer and Anvil”, a seguiriya that’s part of a flamenco suite for violin by Dave Soldier. The Hersch and Shirazi pieces were also written for me.

LeGuessWho is a thrilling festival that features many artists and bands, with concerts happening simultaneously or overlapping at different venues, and curated by various performers. Thanks to Patrick Higgins for inviting me! I played the first day of the festival, at the Hertz hall at TivoliRedenburg arts center. The hall was full and the very quiet audience responded with whoops and cheers. I played Xenakis “Mikka S”, Richard Barrett “Air”, Donatoni “Argot”, and two premieres. Reiko Füting’s “passage: time (copy)”, a beautiful, frantic fever-dream piece in its European premiere, makes brief references to works by Biber, Kühnel, Westhoff, JS Bach, and Pisendel. Aida Shirazi’s “Sāniyā”, which had its world premiere, evokes the dappled effects and rustling, whispery noise from the movement of wind and sunlight through tree leaves. I’ll be performing both these pieces multiple times this season.

Here is a write-up of the concert and here is another.