Tonight the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by their new chief conductor Markus Poschner, will play Mathilde Wantenaar's Prèlude à une Nuit Américaine in the Konzerhaus in Vienna. The orchestra will also play Prokofiev's third piano concerto and Richard Strauss' Aus Italien.
Last year, on the occasion of the premiere of Wantenaar's Accordion Concerto by the same orchestra, Markus Poschner gave an interview about her work:
As part of their winter tour, the National Youth Orchestra, consisting of the Netherlands’ best conservatory students, and soloist Vincent van Amsterdam will play Mathilde Wantenaar’s Accordion Concerto throughout the Netherlands. The orchestra, conducted by Otto Tausk, will play six concerts:
18 January, Theater Orpheus, Apeldoorn
19 January, De Doelen, Rotterdam
22 January, Concertgebouw De Vereeniging, Nijmegen
23 January, Concertzaal Amare, Den Haag
24 January, Tivoli Vredenburg, Utrecht
25 January, Parkstad Limburg Theater, Heerlen
Tickets are available here.
The concerto was recorded in March 2024 by Vincent van Amsterdam and Residentie Orkest The Hague:
Together with Tijmen van Tol, Mathilde Wantenaar provided and created the music for the new documentary 'The Propagandist' by Luuk Bouwman.
Drawing on previously unpublished interviews, journals, family footage and propaganda films, The Propagandist tracks the rise and fall of the Dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen, who lived from 1898 to 1975. Coming from a very wealthy background meant Teunissen was able to pursue his aspirations as a filmmaker early in life. During the Second World War he became the most powerful man in the Dutch film industry. As head of the Film Department of the SS and the Dutch Nazi party the NSB, he became known as “the film czar” and “the Dutch Leni Riefenstahl.” After the war, Teunissen was prosecuted and punished. He nevertheless continued to boast about his shrewdness and his connections with the higher-ups of the Nazi regime. A portrait gradually emerges of a man and his motivations. At the same time, this documentary about unbridled ambition and the manipulative power of film questions the boundaries between documentary and propaganda. It reveals how propagandists go about their work—how they disseminate images, stories, disinformation and ideology.
The premiere will take place on 16 November at Carré in Amsterdam. The Documentary will be screened several times at IDFA. Tickets are available here.