Since 1998 Grachtenfestival Amsterdam has offered a stage to young talented people playing classical music. This coming edition of the festival we will also be offering that stage to young talented composers. The adventurous pianist and composer Thomas Beijer was asked to create a new composition using the festival theme ‘Expedition’. It resulted in the composition ‘Man and the Sea’ for piano quartet.
Thomas Beijer describes what inspired him for his composition, which was greatly influenced by Johannes Brahms and the author Ernest Hemingway:
‘The sea is a metaphor for life itself. This man is at sea, in my mind’s eye he’s not on a big galleon, but on a small paddling boat, on his own. I believe that at the end of the day, every human being is alone, and stays alone. Which are the crucial obstacles that man is faced with in his lifetime? If you ask me, these obstacles are the awareness of our loneliness and the fact that death is inevitable. What we have to hold on to, or to comfort us, are art and religion. Religion in the sense of a comforting faith in something greater than what meets the eye, and in saying that, I am not referring to a God, or Gods.’
Combineer het concert van The Amsterdam Chamber Soloists met een heerlijke maaltijd.