Spokespeople

What does Ravel have to do with DNA modification? What does Saint-Saëns have to do with animal rights? What seems incompatible at first glance turns out on closer inspection to be related after all.

Spraakmakers is a traveling concert series that combines classical music with stories of today. Spraakmakers connects the voices of well-known actors Ellen ten Damme, Soumaya Ahouaoui and Lars Brinkman with the music of top Dutch ensembles. Together they forge tantalizing stories about today's world and matching classical musical works into one new narrative. Told and played simultaneously, as a theatrical musical story. The Flemish playwright Lucas De Man flamboyantly hosts the audience during a theatrical evening that holds many surprises. Spraakmakers is for everyone who seeks story and meaning in classical music.

Provocative or entertaining stories about current themes - think animal rights, the Catholic Church and designer babies - Speechmakers combines them with classical musical works that are just as much about this. Top Dutch actors add their voices as an additional storyline to the music, connecting the work to the here and now. The story feeds the music and the music feeds the story. Thus, Speechmakers makes music from long ago sound relevant again in today's world.

In one evening, three actors and three ensembles perform three stories Designer Babies

With the new technology CRISPR-Cas, tinkering with our DNA has become child's play. We can shape life on earth, including our own offspring, the way we want. Who wouldn't wish themselves a smart, strong and attractive child? Yet not everyone feels as senanged by a humanity that can so easily "play God.

In Designer Babies, actor Soumaya Ahouaoui tells a story about cutting and pasting DNA. And why that's a good idea after all and we should take designer babies at face value. She tells this story using Maurice Ravel's String Quartet, performed by the ADAM Quartet. Ravel wrote this work at a time (1889) when new technological possibilities were emerging at lightning speed. Ravel's music has something to teach us about moral choices that can accompany them, as it does today.

A Catholic youth

Abuses in the Catholic Church are forcing many churchgoers to reflect. In The Way In, actor Lars Brinkman interprets the story of a lonely Catholic believer who goes back to the memories of his Catholic youth. He does this through Fratres by Arvo Part, performed by the Berlage Saxophone Quartet. A story of denial, recognition and accountability.

In the 1980s, after years of reflection and thorough self-study, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt introduced his "tintinnabuli," a new style of music that would bring him world fame. Fratres is one of his first tintinnabuli works. For Pärt, tintinnabuli was "an area. into which I sometimes wander, when I am searching for answers - in my life, my music, my work and in my dark hours.

Animal Voices

Be honest, most of us see animals - pardon the pun - as lower in the order of life. Could we handle seeing animals as full-fledged conspecifics? In Dierenstemmen, singer and actress Ellen ten Damme tells a story about what happens when we give animals fundamental rights and a political voice. She tells this using Saint-Saëns' Carnival of Animals, performed by piano duo Scholtes & Janssens.

Carnival of Animals is widely regarded as an ode to the animal kingdom. But those who listen with current ears also hear something else: a hyperactual story about our dealings with non-human animals. We hear chickens clucking to their deaths at the slaughterhouse. The aquarium suddenly sounds disturbing, as if the fish are worried. Was it Saint-Saëns' foresight in hiding this meaning in the music?