Newsletter
Recently our new Thirty-One was published, a journal with lots of information and scientific content. In it there is also a news item under the name micro-actualities. Next to this news will be send along with the concert anouncements. Together this will form the newsletter. Once a year a special newsletter will appear at the end of the season. All the news in the past will have a place on this webpage.
Latest newletter
Micro-actualities
The year 2009 is a special year for the Huygens-Fokker Foundation. The renovation of the
Fokker organ has recently been successfully completed by organ builders Pels & Van Leeuwen.
Our unique 31-tone instrument has now a permanent place in the BAM Zaal of the
Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ in Amsterdam, making the return of the Fokker organ to the music
world a fact. This memorable event was celebrated with an inaugural concert on May 17th
2009. A cross section of the concert offerings for the season 2009-2010 was performed,
including highlights of the repertoire of the Fokker-organ by our own organist Joop van
Goozen, improvisations by Guus Janssen, old music from baroque ensemble La Barca Leyden
and a new composition by Danny de Graan, in which the newest technical possibilities of the
Fokker organ, recently equipped with MIDI-In and MIDI-Out, could be heard.
Another important fact is that the new Huygens-Fokker website was launched on the internet
at the beginning of 2009. Our old website was admittedly very extensive but insufficiently
inviting to the reader, so it needed a replacement. The website of the Huygens-Fokker
Foundation is now, after a complete renewal, even more informative than before. Since 2008
the Foundation has had a new domain name, namely www.huygens-fokker.org. New also is
the Bohlen-Pierce site; after the foundation received the whole original Bohlen-Pierce
documentation from Heinz Bohlen, we are hosting the new Bohlen-Pierce site on our new
website: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/bpsite/index.html
To spread knowledge about microtonality, the Huygens-Fokker Foundation has, in its capacity
as a centre for microtonal music, formulated several educational activities over the course of the
past year, including study programs, workshops, lectures and educational projects for several
age-groups. Also there is, after some time, a new publication of Thirty-One, our journal on
microtonality, of which this, under editorial supervision of Bob Gilmore, is the first result.
Sander Germanus
director, Huygens-Fokker Foundation
Photo: Maarten Klijn
News archive
Sunday, February 21st 2010, 11.00 | BAM Hall | Guus Janssen touches the Fokker organ
Guus Janssen will be touching and playing the Fokker organ (on both 12-tone and 31-tone keyboards). Special guest is clarinet and saxophone player David Kweksilber, who will provide him with musical accompaniment during several improvisations. Janssen will also compose some short pieces and jazz themes especially for the Fokker organ to investigate the possibilities of improvising with microtonality. If you're curious to know where this leads to and you're up to hear a new sound, come and visit this exciting and unpredictable concert!
You can order tickets by the Muziekgebouw.
Concert | February 14th 2010, 11.00 | BAM Hall | Chinese Temperaments
Under the Chinese Opera Weekend the organ-player Ere Lievonen and erhu-player Fang Weiling will search for corresponding temperaments and tunings by improvising on a Chinese theme and playing a Chinese composition during this concert. The erhu, in Western countries better known a the "Chinese violin", is a two-snared string instrument that is regularly used as a solo instrument or as part of ensembles or orchestras. On the programme is furthermore the Bagatelle "Chinees" of Adriaan Fokker, Suite van kleine stukken of Henk Badings en a whole new piece of Joke Kegel, named Imaginary City.
Tickets can be reserved by the Muziekgebouw.
Free admission.
Concert 12-13-09, 11 am, BAM Hall : Pimp My Organ!
In this concert, the Fokker organ will be operated by laptops. Several composers will work with live electronics in their pieces. All of them (Marc Sabat, Danny de Graan, Rozalie Hirs and Jos Zwaanenburg) composed a work for the Fokker organ operated via MIDI. A composition by Conlon Nancarrow will also be performed, with electronics and in a more just tuning. Using extra digital stops and other new electronic possibilities of this renovated acoustic 31-tone instrument, the Fokker organ will be expanded and pimped with many new sounds.
Tickets can be ordered by the Muziekgebouw.
La Barca Leyden , 11-22-09, 11 am: The fifth tone of Christiaan Huygens
Exploration through ornamentation and Baroque improvisation, of the effect the existence of an instrument such as the Fokker-organ would have had on the music from Christiaan Huygens' time. Research has shown that the use of additional tones/keys (to be able to tune the instrument) led some composers of the seventeenth century to a bizarre use of chromatic micro tones. A chance for Baroque ensemble La Barca Leyden to rewrite the history of music.
Tickets can be orderd by the Muziekgebouw.
Premiere concert Fokker organ, October 11th 2009, 11.00 hours, BAM Zaal - Muziekgebouw: '31-tone music at the IJ'
Organ player Ere Lievonen, next to Joop van Goozen the new player of the Fokker organ, will play fascinating 31-tone music during this concert.
Besides the fact that there will be new music performed on the Fokker organ, from which the composition Forma of Danny de Graan is one of them, old masters of the meantone temperament can also be heard, among them a work composed by the famous Dutchman from Amsterdam: Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Other historical repertoire will also be performed this morning on this special microtonal instrument, among them work of the composers Henk Badings en Ivan Wyschnegradsky.
Tickets can be orderd by the Muziekgebouw.
Inaugural concert, 5-17-2009, 11 am | BAM Hall (Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ), A'dam
 After the renovation of the Fokker-organ the instrument will make it's return into the music world by a surprising inaugural concert. There will be a cross section of the concerts of next season, including highlights of the repertoire of the Fokker-organ played by Joop van Goozen, improvisations by Guus Janssen, old music played La Barca Leyden and a demonstration of the new possibilities of the Fokker-organ by composer Danny de Graan.
Thirty-One
Thirty-One is the journal
of the Huygens-Fokker Foundation, a
periodical about microtonal music with lots of information and scientific content, that appears around two times a year.
See the webpage of Thirty-One on our site. You can also find it on www.thirty-one.eu!
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