| Maker | Music in the Making/Beate Loonstra |
| Duration | 50 min |
| Part of | Season 26-27 |
Your story as the starting point for new music
What do you do when you’re confronted with bad news? Harpist Beate Loonstra, known from programs like Vrije Geluiden and NTR Podium, turns your story into new, vivid, and rhythmic music together with you. She’s already spent hundreds of hours creating new compositions after brief encounters with listeners who shared their stories on the spot. So what you hear are pieces of music that are created and performed live. What would you want her to play for you?
An intimate concert where your story becomes music
This intimate musical evening makes tangible how art can help process (bad) news. The audience is seated around harpist Beate, close to both the music and each other. The evening begins with a piece inspired by a current event. Throughout the space, there are storytelling chairs: take a seat if you want to share a personal story for Beate to transform into a new musical piece. It is not a literal translation, but a musical interpretation full of atmosphere, movement, and sound.
Even if you choose not to share anything, you’ll still be drawn into an adventurous concert for harp with unusual objects. A hopeful evening that shows how even bad news can bring something beautiful.
Beate Loonstra (1992) is an adventurous harpist and creator. She regularly appears on radio and television, including VPRO Vrije Geluiden, NTR Podium, and AVROTROS Klassieken, performing her own compositions, arrangements, and solo improvisations. Her stages range from intimate venues, festivals, museums, and UNESCO World Heritage sites to large halls such as Carré, Amare, Ziggo Dome, and major venues across Europe in Berlin, Brussels, and Barcelona.
Beate is the founder of the improvisation festival Een Harp Onder de Riem, held annually in July at the Mozes & Aaronkerk on Amsterdam’s Waterlooplein. In six years, the festival has drawn over 23,000 visitors and reached more than a million listeners with new, meaningful music.
She is also a member of the Herz Ensemble, the contemporary music collective of Australian-Dutch composer Kate Moore, and regularly collaborates with ensembles such as the Metropole Orkest and the Dutch National Choirs. Beate is a guest trainer at ArtEZ University of the Arts and the Authenticity Academy. She creates compositions for a wide range of settings, and her style is lively, rhythmic, and full of energy.
Beate Loonstra: harp and (instant) composition
NOWNOWNOW presents two weeks of work by makers who don’t just follow the news, they work within it. Raw, urgent, and unfiltered!
Korzo Studio