Festival Dag in de Branding: Music for Empty Spaces - Heather Pinkham

In the Studio, Myrto Nizami presents a first scene from the chamber opera she is developing during her residency at the festival. She draws inspiration from Fernando Pessoa’s Sonnet VIII. Like that poem, her opera is about masks, shifting identities and stratification.

What comes after death? The mystery of our final journey is as old as humanity itself. But unlike our ancestors, we prefer not to think about it. And that is a loss, according to composer Heather Pinkham. In this new edition of Music for Empty Spaces, Pinkham asks nine peers with diverse backgrounds to reflect on dying, death and grief. Music, as the language of the unspeakable, can help us talk about the irrevocable end that is simply part of life.

During the corona pandemic, Pinkham organized the first edition of Music for Empty Spaces, which was streamed live from the Muziekgebouw. The program was a success, viewed worldwide and even repeated live in front of an audience. The subject of the second edition naturally became an extension of this: the same way nine composers reflecting on life in isolation, death is now the subject of reflection. Once again, top Dutch musicians will take part in the performance, including Saskia Lankhoorn, Elisabeth Hetherington and Max Frimout.