Klankcafé, Episode Twenty

Quick, think of a studio!

If what you came up with is something like a very sound-proofed room with a lot of microphones, a potential drumkit in the back (buzzing snare optional) and a glass partitioning walling off a few sound engineers who are wearing impressive headphones and pressing far too many buttons, you've basically got the image I had.

Apparently, it's not like that for the radio.

The recording was in Vondel CS. Completely unexpectedly, it's located next to the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. The ground floor of the building consists of a very fancy restauraunt. The first floor contains several large, airy rooms with these huge floor-to-ceiling windows. All of them can be converted to rehearsal room, meeting room, recording room, or lounge at the drop of a hat. The second floor I presume contains much of the same.

In the centre of all this, there is a bar.

As you can well imagine, I quite liked it.

When I got there, there wasn't actually a piano in the studio yet, but that was fixed with remarkable alacracity. It was quite good, too - it's major flaw was that the music stand was rather wonky (in the sense that it was about to fall over and whack the cast-iron frame inside the piano). We considered fixing it with duct-tape, and then decided against it.

And then suddenly it was four o'clock, and it was showtime!

I was actually in the audience, which I haven't done in years - generally, if I have to perform, I'm sweating somewhere backstage. A visual artist was introduced, Mark Pistoor, pictures of whose awesome artwork you can find here. Manja Kruidhof-Okkerse played a beautiful solo violin piece written by her husband. Jannum was interviewed, and then it was my turn!

The second half consisted of singer Anneke van Giersbergen. She's actually a pop/modern music singer, but she's recently created an album also containing classics ranging from Grieg to Wim Sonnevelt. She sang three songs yesterday, and her rendition of Danny Boy was quite haunting.

It's on Spotify. I'd most definitely recommend looking it up.

And then it was five o'clock, and it was all done...

Honestly, I loved every minute of it. I shall have to find out how one gets on a radio show more often.

Meanwhile, I'll need all of you to set an alarm in your phone. The show will be broadcasted Thursday the 25th of February between 18:00 and 19:00 on "De Concertzender", and it will be awesome.

And if you can't make that time, don't worry - afterwards, you can listen back on the website any time you want!