| Headscarfs for Geert Wilders |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|09:58 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relaxed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | My new Philips NP 2500 internet radio | ] |
This picture from the largest Muslim country in the world (Indonesia) is especially dedicated to the Dutch right wing politician Geert Wilders. He still thinks that woman wearing headscarfs is a sign that they are oppressed by the Islam.
I have never seen more emancipated, happy looking, openly flirting woman with headscarfs on. Like this encounter at the Sultan's Palace in Cirebon. This group of educated woman really wanted to be on the photograph with me, big man from Holland. Laying their arms around me, they were not the timid women that people think they are under Islam.
When Wilders will be convicted for discrimination (he is being prosecuted at the moment), maybe they should send him to Indonesia for a few weeks to see that the world is more complicated than in his mind...
They do send Moroccan boys denying the Holocaust to Auschwitz to learn some things, and that works too... |
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| Tarima Kassie Piet Hein |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|03:50 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Some Indonesian Karaoke | ] |
The Indonesian tour by the POW Ensemble is coming to an end. That is a little sad, as we have had such a great time here!
Tonight we play the last concert, here in Cirebon, at the north coast of Java.
Thanks for all the people who made this tour possible: Otto, Zacky, Ditto, Kezhia, Dian, all the students.
And most of all, our lovely Piet Hein, who couldn't make it to Cirebon, because of some health problems.
The POW Ensemble & crew and students at Theater Salihara in Jakarta
Interview with Wiek Hijmans and me (in English) in the Jakarta Globe.
Blog entree about the Bandun concert, made by someone in the audience (in Bahasa Indonesia) |
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| Ajoen ajoen ajoen in die hoge klapperboom |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|09:21 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hot | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ajoen ajoen ajoen in die hoge klapperboom | ] |
It's a very long time ago that I have last updated my LJ.
A lot of things has happened since my last posting.
- The POW Ensemble premiered the new show: 'Strange Attractors' during the Gaudeamus Performers week in Amsterdam
- We played several concerts in Holland since then
- We played at the Sonorities Festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland
And now we are in Indonesia for a 2 week tour, consisting of workshops, master classes and concerts. We are staying a week in Jakarta, and then playing on Sumatra (Padangpadjang), then doing some more performances in Bandung and Cerebon.
It's an unbelievable experience! Jakarta is a totally chaotic town, there is one constant traffic jam from 6 am until midnight. And the same time people are extremely friendly and polite, in traffic ad elsewhere!
Here in Jakarta we are doing several workshops, and 4 concerts. On the picture you can see some of the students doing our introduction computer music class.
The students are very smart!
More postings as soon as I will be back home, after 17 June!
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| POW Ensemble at Borealis |
[Mar. 27th, 2009|01:06 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Viper Sniper - Guy Harries | ] |
We just came back from Bergen, Norway, were we played two concerts at the Borealis Festival. The main performance was at the Logen Theater in Bergen, featuring Luc Houtkamp (saxophone, computer), Han Buhrs (voice), Marije Nie (tap dance), Guy Harries (vocals, flute computer), DNA (turntables) and Jacqueline Hamelink (cello).
We also played the Festival's opening concert at the Bergen Travpark with Marije & Han. The POW Ensemble accompanied the horse race! In fact, we did the pony race, and another group played during the race with horses. Probably one of our weirdest gig locations!
You can see the ponies passing by somewhere at 1:52 minutes in the video.
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| BDSM Cock & Rabbit! |
[Mar. 21st, 2009|02:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  crazy | ] |
Here is a cell phone (unfortunately) quality video clip. It's one of the experiments for the POW Ensemble Borealis Festival show in Bergen, Norway, on 25 March 2009.
I play a rabbit with a build-in Wii controller, who is attacked by a rubber cock! The music to accompany the scene will be Jacqueline Hamelink's cello playing, but here you hear a MIDI file.
BDSM for cocks & rabbits...
The Borealis website is here: http://borealisfestival.no/2009/ |
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| New CD release! |
[Feb. 28th, 2009|11:59 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | pow ensemble | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Loser - Guy Harries & The POW Ensemble | ] |
My new cd by the POW Ensemble can now be ordered on the internet.
It only costs 11 euro plus postage, so please order now! ;-)
You can order and pay through PayPal at our X-OR webshop: http://www.xs4all.nl/~xorluc/urls/releases_FR14.html
POW Ensemble Homage to Hazard live X-OR FR 14 Field Recording
Han Buhrs vocals, backing vocals, voice, live electronics
Luc Houtkamp computer, live electronics, tenor saxophone
Guy Harries vocals, backing vocals, flute, fife, computer, keyboards
Wolter Wierbos trombone, vocals
Nina Hitz cello
Live in het Bimhuis, Amsterdam, 26 juni 2008
Special guest:
Joseph Bowie trombone, vocals
In Western society it seems that security is God Almighty. Any hazard,
coincidence, instability or even doubt is banned from our horizon. There
is a strong collective urge to believe that modern technology will free
us from peril - our prehistorical aspect of life.
At the same time, we also know that it is often fun to deal with the
unexpected, to sharpen our brains and our senses by dealing with
situations that occur accidentally, to improvise our way out of an
uncontrolled momentum. Why? Because it appeals to our basic instinct.
This is precisely the thought that unites the POW-musicians: they pursue
hazard, uncertainty and instability as a given fact. They regard doubt
and instinct as useful colours to paint with. They never take anything
for granted, and create a song out of any question mark.
In this Homage to Hazard, The POW Ensemble plays songs of insecurity -
songs that might create unease, but don`t deny reality!
More X-Or releases can be found here: http://www.x-or.nl/ |
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| Last night! |
[Jan. 1st, 2009|02:54 pm] |
Pascal and Adri, by Luc
A happy and healthy 2009 for you all! |
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| 2008 |
[Dec. 31st, 2008|11:21 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | My iPod, with Eric Dolphy, Prince, Gustav Mahler, DJ Shadow, Schnittke | ] |
Ok, 31 December 2008, time for my overview of the year.
2008 was quite an emotional year. A lot of things happened, and not all good. However, at the moment I feel calm, relaxed and quite positive.
As this posting is very long, I made a cut, after which the story can be read.
( Click here to read the story! )
I wish everybody a great and healthy 2009!
Me, playing in Cologne, while getting a EEG brainscan... |
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| Bush' shoes |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|07:54 am] |
I hope that George W. Bush will be remembered as the first American president who got a shoe thrown at him!
:-)
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| Double Dutch |
[Dec. 5th, 2008|09:35 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
Today I was in Amsterdam and bought a book with poems by John O' Mill, Lyrical Laria (1956). It cost me 3,50 euro only.
"An embittered, old sceptic in Zundert
is convinced Mother Nature has blundered
In his angry man's eyes
half the world is not wise
and the rest is hard sicker bethundered"
Is there any English or American native speaker who can understand the poem?
Wikipedia says:
Johan van der Meulen (11 January 1915, Breda - 13 September 2005, Breda), better known by his pseudonym John O'Mill (a jocular translation of his given name, as if O' stands for "of the"), is a Dutch author mostly known for his wordplay and limericks, and for using a combination of Dutch and English words and sentence structures he called "Double Dutch". Double Dutch appears English, but it cannot be fully understood without knowledge of Dutch, because it is based on the literal translation of Dutch idioms into English and the similarity in sound of certain words and expressions. O'Mill, who was until 1975 a teacher of English on the public highschool "Rijks-HBS" at Breda near Rotterdam, was inspired to this by the clumsy English used by his pupils. |
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| 55th birthday, getting old ;-) |
[Nov. 28th, 2008|09:29 pm] |
Finally our 2 year grant application is ready! Lets hope we will have more success this time than with the 4 year grant!
I'm getting old! ;-)
Now, percussionist Sven Ake Johansson has released a cd with the oldest recordings I ever made!
In 1972, I was 18!
When they start doing those things, one must be very old!
We had a group called STEAM, and we performed at the incredible ICES '72 Festival at the Roundhouse in London organized by the evenly incredible person Harvey Matusow.
It was, besides Sven and me: Richard Anijs (French Horn), Tony van Campen (Synthi-A), and Henny Kamphuizen (Cello, Crackle Box). Richard got a motor accident years ago and now only plays for fun. Tony died in 1990 at the age of 39. And Henny became an independent filmmaker.
In a way it was interesting to hear such an old recording. OK, we still had a lot to learn, but somehow I was surprised to to hear that 36 years ago nearly all the ingredients that still are in my music were already there! And the music has a lot of energy!
You can order the cd by sending 17 euro (including postage) to my paypal account at xorluc@xs4all.nl or at Sven's website.
More about age. This thursday December 4 is my 55th birthday! We are doing a concert at STEIM in Amsterdam, a special 55th birthday concert!
Besides the music audience I invited a lot of friends. So we probably gonna have a nice party!
The POW Ensemble will play in the Homage to Hazard Line up:
Han Buhrs - vocals, live electronics
Guy Harries - vocals, flute, computer
Luc Houtkamp - saxophones, computer, live electronics
Jacqueline Hamelink - cello
Wolter Wierbos - trombone, live electronics
Please come if you happen to be in Holland!
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| Jobama |
[Nov. 12th, 2008|02:52 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
Our POW Ensemble member Joseph Bowie is wearing his Obama t-shirt with pride! |
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| HAMBA KAHLE MIRIAM! |
[Nov. 10th, 2008|11:09 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Miriam Makeba & the Skylarks vol 1, Teal Records | ] |
Miriam Makeba (1932 - 2008)
Miriam Makeba in 1960 in SA with the Manhattan Brothers.
Miriam Makeba in Tilburg, The Netherlands on 5 November, less than a week before her death. |
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| Protest concert, yesterday... |
[Sep. 5th, 2008|03:37 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  energetic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Cornelis de Bondt | ] |
Yesterday we did the first in what hopefully will be a series of protest concerts, organized by the ensembles that are rejected for a 4 year grant. The concert was held in the DCR, a Den Haag art center were LOOS, one of the rejected ensembles, has it's studio.
Composer Cornelis de Bondt made a special piece for it: De Generale Dans. We played it with 20 people coming from different ensembles: LOOS, Volharding, POW Ensemble, Insomnio, Bik Bent Braam, MAE and a few individual musicians, like Guus Janssen.
It's was a bit difficult to get it rehearsed in only 2 hours, but we tried to play it with passion:
The idea is that we will do more protest concerts with this piece and that the orchestra will slowly grown to an enormous band of 100 or more musicians.
BTW, you can still show your solidarity with us, by writing something on the POW Ensemble action blog:
http://powensemble.blogspot.com/2008/08/steun-het-pow-ensemble_17.html |
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| Support the POW Ensemble! |
[Aug. 20th, 2008|03:24 pm] |
Support the POW Ensemble!
We were shocked to hear that the Music committee of the NFPK+ has
advised not to extend the four year subsidy for the POW Ensemble.
The decision was completely contrary to what we had expected. In the
last few years, the ensemble has developed and created a great deal,
with an extremely low structural subsidy. We have performed dozens of
concerts every year in the Netherlands and abroad, playing a music genre
that is considered 'difficult' by many. We have attracted new and less
elitist audiences, bridging gaps between people from different
backgrounds. It is extremely discouraging that we are not rewarded for
our effort and motivation.
The committee appears to have a conservative view of electronic music,
which is opposed to the vision of the ensemble. It seems that for them
it is unthinkable that an ensemble focusing on interactive computer
music does not only confine itself to a more academic type of music, but
also collaborates with a tap dancer, creates a project influenced by
Arabic music, or suddenly comes up with a cheerful sing-along tune!
The committee's decision completely ignores the high level of
recognition we have in the Netherlands and abroad as an ensemble for
live electronic music, which is strange, as NFPK+ claims to put quality
at the top of the agenda.
Of course, this doesn't mean the end of the POW Ensemble! The ensemble
has always kept on going through the hardest of times.
However, if NFPK+ stops providing us with a structural subsidy, an
important part of our funding will be gone. It will be difficult to
create new performances, invest in management and publicity, rehearse.
Eventually the number of concerts we can play could go down.
Now is the time to protest strongly against the decision, because at the
moment the NFPK+ committee's decision is only an advisory one. It is a
decision that we plan to appeal against.
So, how can you help us?
- You can respond on our blog:
http://powensemble.blogspot.com/2008/08/steun-het-pow-ensemble_17.html
Say what you think of the POW Ensemble, the part it plays in the
electronic music scene, its international significance, and the support
we deserve!
- You can send a a letter of support to our mail address (preferably a
word or pdf document) with similar content: thepowensemble@xs4all.nl
We hope to hear from you, and receive your response asap!
Best regards,
The POW Ensemble
Luc Houtkamp, artistic director
Adri van den Berg, managing director
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