Description
‘Mama!’ is the live recording of the 2004 New Year’s Concert by VARA and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, held on 1 January in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. It is an ode to life, a serenade to the figure where all life begins and to the first word we all learn as children: Mama!
Mothers are where everything begins, and they stay with us our whole lives. All guest soloists are, of course, mothers. Flamenco singer Curra Suarez is a mother, as are the ten South-African overtone singers and soul singer Autumn Leaves (the young Maartje Teussink still has a while to go yet, however). The youngest people involved in the programme are the nine Young Composers aged between 12 and 17, the lucky winners of the annual composition contest that is part of the New Year’s concert. This DVD also includes highlights from the 2003 New Year’s concert (The Netherlands Wind Ensemble and Street Musicians), and the Young Composers documentary.
‘Time and again, the Ensemble surprises and delights with fresh programmes that make every single New Year’s concert a unique post-modern celebration – an astonishingly broad spectrum of musical styles paraded in joyful, tightly organised anarchy.’
Het Parool daily paper
‘An exotic contribution was made by the Ngqoko overtone singers with their monochordal bowed gourds (uhadi); Autumn Leaves, the stunning and charismatic envy of the hall, was a soul diva who both sang – and embodied – the Hip-Shakin’ Mama. Young artiste Maartje Teussink is the owner of a solid, powerful and extremely versatile voice, commanding the hall to silence in her performance of a traditional lullaby from the Dutch region of Twente.’
NRC Handelsblad daily paper
Soloists Curra Suarez (singer), Autumn Leaves, Ngqoko, Maartje Teussink (singers)
Young composers Eline Hofstra, HuFF (Sander Blommaert, Ruben Nijssen), Just Jammin’ (Thomas Meijaard, Quinten Huigen, Gideon Hamburger, Niels Berne, Kagan Hans)
