Stichting MUZE

Stichting MUZE (the MUZE Foundation) was established in 2018 and aims to promote vocal music. Furthermore, it promotes the performance practice of contemporary vocal music and vocal music that has been forgotten or rarely performed and everything that is related to this in the broadest sense, belongs to it and/or can be conducive to it. The foundation tries to achieve this goal by commissioning and performing new vocal compositions as well as promoting (own) arrangements of existing (vocal) music, so that it can be performed more widely.

Board:
Geeske Coebergh - chairman
Gwen van Boven - secretary
Gijs Hoevenaars - treasurer

Productions:
Fantastic Women (2018)
Kerst met Quatre Bouches (2020)
Van donker naar licht (2021

Fantastic Women

Bauwien van der Meer is the creator of the project Fantastic Women. Fantastic women is a performance with the stature of a song recital (vocals and piano) and the vibrancy of a variety act. The theme of this project is women's issues: ten composers address the position of women in 2017, on the basis of penetrating music and (in many cases their own) texts. Women from Tunisian, Dutch, Australian, Cypriotic, and six other different backgrounds. From two or three of them existing, but rarely performed, work will be heard, all other works will be written especially for this project.

Bauwien van der Meer about the project: In his Frauenliebe und Leben Robert Schumann in 1840 sang in first person about the infancy of a girl, her marriage problems, giving birth to children and grieving for the death of her husband. Not uncommon at that time, not even long afterwards: famous female characters from the song and opera culture are usually written by a man. But what do women have to say themselves? What is their perspective on the world, what is their tone? To find out, I invited ten female composers whom I admire to contribute a composition. The music in Fantastic Women ranges from minimal music through almost overesthetic splendor to meaningful violence, from a refined colorite to the raw, the ugly, the shrill.

Performers: Bauwien van der Meer: sopraan, Caecilia Boschman: piano
Compositions of: Aleksandra Bajde, Rozalie Hirs, Anda Kryezin, Renske Vrolijk, Kate Moore, Georgia Nicolaou, Barbara Okma, Annelies van Parys, Calliope Tsoupaki, Yiran Zhao
Direction: Jorinde Keesmaat
Light: Desiree van Gelderen
Design: Sammy van den Heuvel
Dramaturgy: Robin de Bruijn

Trailer Fantastic Women:

For more information on the project: Flyer Fantastic Women

An in-depth interview with Bauwien van der Meer about the relationship between the artistic and production work for Fantastic Women: Ondernemend: Fantastic Women op ODR 2019

Dates performances:
06-11-2018 - Amsterdam - Sneak Prehear, Splendor Amsterdam Splendor Amsterdam
08-11-2018 - Culemborg - Try-out
09-11-2018 - Den Bosch - première
11-11-2018 - Amsterdam - CC Amstel CCAmstel
15-03-2019 - Den Haag, Korzo theater
24-03-2019 - Fantastic Women in concert (selection), Tilburg, De Pont
18-05-2019 - Rotterdam, Opera Dagen Rotterdam
07-06-2019 - Utrecht, TivoliVredenburg
20-07-2019 - 's-Graveland, festival Wonderfeel

For Venue and Tickets performances Fantastic Women, see: Venue and Tickets

Fantastic Women is being developed in cooperation with the November Music festival in Den Bosch where the premiere will take place on November 9 2018: November Music

Fantastic Women receives a subsidy from:
the Eduard van Beinum Stichting (EVBS): Eduard van Beinum Stichting (EVBS)
Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds: Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst: Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst
NORMA: NORMA
Fonds Podiumkunsten: Fonds Podiumkunsten