After the IVC’s commission of Het Narrenschip from composer Wilbert Bulsink to a text by Sebastian Brandt in 2010, an extract from the Bosch poems by Pé Hawinkels will be used for the 2012 commission. The extract chosen is a fragment concerning Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Garden of Earthly Delights and has been translated into Latin for this commission by Dr. Harm-Jan van Dam. Our intention is that two more such compositions based on Hawinkels’ texts on Bosch’s paintings will follow in 2014 and 2016, given that 2016 will mark the 500th anniversary of Bosch’s death.
Performances of all these songs will then be recorded on CD by the various prizewinners of the Dutch Composition Prize. The texts will also be translated and printed in several languages, whilst pertinent details from the paintings on which the songs are based will also be reproduced.
All singers who take part in the IVC must prepare the compulsory Dutch vocal work. Candidates who list it as part of their repertoire will also be eligible for the Dutch Composition Prize (€ 2500) and the November Music engagement prize. The piece can also be counted as one of the 3 compulsory post-1915 works that each candidate must present.
The general public will hear the song for the first dime during the semi-finals; it will also be performed by selected candidates / prizewinners during the Final of the IVC 2012
The new vocal work for IVC 2012 has been commissioned from the Dutch composer Jeppe Moulijn.
Composer
As composer Jeppe Moulijn remains distant from every fashionable composing technique and multimedia hype. His style is expressive and accessible and his works appeal to a broad spectrum of the public, although this is absolutely not Moulijn’s conscious intention. Listeners can hear the unmistakable influences of Mahler, Berg, Ravel, Britten, Takemitsu and Adams, his composer heroes, although Moulijn’s own personal sound is just as unmistakable in that he makes important use of refined instrumental colour. Poetry is also an important source of inspiration for him; vocal soloists appear in the majority of his works, in which he uses texts by Yeats, Walt Whitman, D.H. Lawrence and J.J. Slauerhoff amongst others.
Jeppe Moulijn studied composition under Diderik Wagenaar and musicology at the University of Utrecht and theory and orchestration with Theo Verbey and Louis Andriessen respectively. Composing has taken a steadily more prominent place in Moulijn’s activities in recent years; his recent compositions include various orchestral song cycles, chamber music and a violin concerto. Moulijn’s works have been performed in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Beurs van Berlage and have been performed by such internationally acknowledged artists as mezzo-soprano Margriet van Reisen, tenor André Post and violinist Joris van Rijn.
The premiere of Ishmael and Isaac, a choral work commissioned by choral conductor Peter Dijkstra and his vocal ensemble Musa, took place in 2009. The subject of the work is the centuries-old conflict between the Western and the Islamitic world, now given form by a story from the Old Testament. The work also includes a Koran reciter. Moulijn’s plans for future works include an orchestral piece and a homage to the industrial designer Robert Opron (of Citroën and Renault) commissioned by the Duo Bilitis.
