Michele Mazzini, bass clarinet Jeroen Oostenveld, light design
Mazzini – Offertorium
About two years ago, Michele Mazzini came across The Book of Symbols, a richly illustrated Taschen publication on the meaning of symbols and archetypes across different cultures and religions. The hefty, eight‑hundred‑page volume proved to be a fertile source of inspiration for Offertorium, the new work for solo bass clarinet and light design (by Jeroen Oostenveld) that Mazzini presents during this edition of Dag in de Branding in the Nieuwe Kerk.
At the time of writing, Mazzini is still in the middle of the creation process which, as is often the case for him, hovers somewhere between composition and improvisation. That tension has everything to do with his background, Mazzini explains in mid‑March over a video call: “As a clarinetist I received a very classical training. But at a certain point that foundation felt too narrow, so I also began exploring composition, jazz, and free improvisation. As a maker, I feel most at home at the intersection of those different practices. On the one hand, I want to be able to work from the moment, from intuition. On the other hand, I also value form and structure.”
In the case of Offertorium, the form took the lead at an early stage. Mazzini: “It became a triptych, a three‑part work loosely based on three deities from different cultures around the world. One part is dedicated to Raijin, a Japanese god of thunder. Then there is Shu, the god of air from Egyptian mythology. And there is Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn.”
How did Mazzini translate these divine characters into music? “I actually hope the music will speak for itself, so I don’t want to steer the listener’s experience too much in advance with literal descriptions. Let’s just say that for me, each of them represents different feelings and atmospheres. Three mental states that freely inspired me during the creation process.”
What Mazzini can say is that he approaches his performance as a ritual. Not coincidentally, the title refers to a part of the Catholic mass, and he chose to situate the performance in the crypt of the Nieuwe Kerk. Laughing: “I think it’s because I’m from Italy, where we have many Gothic churches with dark, slightly eerie crypts.” In Offertorium, darkness may be the point of departure, but not the destination. In the final part, Eos, light begins to break through—hesitantly, but unmistakably.
Laura Marconi – Mein Grund, mein Puls (text: Felicitas Erben) David Lang – Head, Heart (text: Lydia Davis) Michel van der Aa – From Dust
Michele Mazzini combines his performance with an invitation to the boundary‑pushing vocal ensemble Sjaella, six young singers from Germany who seem to trigger a cascade of five‑star reviews wherever they appear.
Marconi – Mein Grund, mein Puls
Autumn 2023. Composer Laura Marconi meets up in Düsseldorf with Viola Blache, first soprano of the vocal ensemble Sjaella. Over coffee, Blache tells her about plans to collaborate with choreographer Mario Schröder on a reimagining of the ballet Giselle for the Leipzig Opera. Would Marconi perhaps be interested in composing part of the music? After all, their earlier collaboration on the project Bach’s Engram – Variationen über das Gedächtnis had been a great success.
Marconi doesn’t need much time to consider the offer. About the music that emerged from it, she writes on her website: “Because I was composing for a ballet, I naturally wanted to create a strong connection with dance. You could say that each piece is a kind of dance of the soul. Mein Grund, mein Puls, for six female voices and xylophone, expresses the hope of a young, dreaming spirit moving freely and innocently through an apparently infinite space.”
David Lang – Head, Heart
Why, American composer David Lang wondered, does the story of Tristan and Isolde still speak to us today? How is it that this nearly thousand‑year‑old tale continues to be retold in countless variations?
This question became the starting point for Lang’s love fail (2012), a sixty‑minute cycle for women’s voices consisting of reflections on the trials and—occasionally—the joys of love. Inspired by the Tristan and Isolde legend, Lang adapted texts by a wide range of authors across the centuries — including Marie de France, Gottfried von Strassburg, Thomas Malory, and Richard Wagner. He distilled them to their essence and interwove them with the sharp, lucid observations of American writer Lydia Davis on quarrels, misunderstandings, and other obstacles on the path to true love.
For the poignant movement Head, Heart, he took as his starting point a poem of the same name by Davis — a meditation on the tug‑of‑war between reason and emotion in moments of piercing loss and heartbreak.
Van der Aa – From Dust
For years, Dutch composer Michel van der Aa has been known for his ingenious interweaving of music theatre and new technology. Just last year, his virtual‑reality opera From Dust won an award at the Cannes Film Festival — Best Immersive Work. Whereas Van der Aa usually deploys his high‑tech music‑theatre illusionism on stage, From Dust immerses the viewer in a deeply personal virtual world, partly generated with the help of AI.
From Dust is best described as a hybrid of music theatre, video game, and installation, in which sound, script, and visuals form an enchanting whole. The viewer becomes the protagonist.
Those who attended a performance during the 2025 Holland Festival wandered, equipped with a VR headset, through surreal landscapes and mysterious spaces. Out of drifting mist and pixelated clouds emerged various female figures: the virtual avatars of the singers of the acclaimed German vocal group Sjaella.
Van der Aa composed a score specifically for their six voices, in which singing merges seamlessly with electronic sound design. Stylistically, the music builds on the hybrid sonic world of Van der Aa’s online song cycle The Book of Sand and his earlier VR installation Eight. Synthesizers fade in and out. Subtle crackles and hisses evoke a sense of nostalgia and memory. In the vocal lines, classical operatic elements intertwine with a generous dose of indie pop.
This afternoon, Sjaella performs live the EP that Van der Aa distilled from the opera’s score.
www.sjaella.de
Viola Blache, soprano
Franziska Eberhardt, soprano
Marie Fenske, soprano
Marie Charlotte Seidl, mezzo‑soprano
Felicitas Erben, alto
Helene Erben, alto