Het Collectief

A festival of American music would fall short of its goals if it didn’t include at least one really long minimalist masterpiece on the programme. 

Feldman’s For Philip Guston – a painter of the New York School – is one of these masterpieces. It expands for hours, until you as a listener can no longer tell the difference between light and darkness, north and south, silence and sound, ebb and high tide. 

Yet minimalism is much more than a trip to the indefinite. When virtually the same material gets repeated over and over, the smallest difference can take on enormous significance. Thus every new note has maximum impact; that too is minimalism. If you feel called, do come early: there are a few very comfortable lounge chairs waiting for you, so that you can join the musicians in doing away with time.

Warning: 
This concert lasts 4h30’ and will be played in one single movement.

"Some who consider themselves unmusical will get the “gist of” and sometimes get “all set up” by many modern pieces, which those who call themselves musical – probably because o long acquaintance solely with certain consonances, single tonalities, monorhythms, formal progression, and structure – do not like." – Charles Ives (Music and Its Future, 1933)