Summer Concert 2023
conductor: Joost Geevers
Sun 18 June, 2023 4:00 p.m.
MCO, Hilversum
Three centuries of music with the GSO
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Fauré: Masques et Bergamasques
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Geevers: Melos for percussion and orchestra
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Jeroen Geevers, percussion
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Beethoven: Symphony Nº2 in D op.36
The Goois Symphony Orchestra is once again playing the première of a new composition: a concerto for percussion and orchestra, quite uncommon among solo concertos. GSO conductor Joost Geevers has written this concerto or his brother Jeroen, who will perform as soloist with The Goois Symphony Orchestra on Sunday afternoon 18 June in the MCO building in Hilversum. The program also includes works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Gabriel Fauré.
Beethoven's Second Symphony was finished in 1803. With this innovative composition, the thirty-something Beethoven followed his own idiosyncratic path. The work is considered a light and cheerful piece compared to his later symphonies, yet the hand of the master is clearly recognizable in this piece.
More than a hundred years later, the elderly Gabriel Fauré wrote music for a theater performance with song and dance, commissioned by Prince Albert I of Monaco. He collected this music in his suite 'Masques et Bergamasques', so that it could also be performed in the concert hall. It is lovely, typically French music that can be enjoyed by the orchestra as well as the audience.
Now another century later, Joost Geevers has composed a solo concerto for his younger brother Jeroen. 'We began together, playing in the Geldrop concert band,' says Joost. Jeroen played percussion from the start, and Joost played the trombone. They both eventually furthered their studies at the conservatory, turning their hobby into their profession. Joost and Jeroen often make music together, for example they both play in the musical theatre company Neo-Fanfare 9x13.
GSO conductor Joost has written an 'almost new' concerto entitled "Melos" for his brother Jeroen, and for his orchestra the GSO. A surprising title for a concerto for percussion, because percussion is mainly rhythmic, isn't it? Joost explains: “It was mainly written for melodic percussion, with my brother's playing style in mind.” Joost himself calls the work a bit jazzy, friendly atonal and expressive. “Less for the head and more for the feeling.”
The piece takes about fifteen minutes during which the composer plays continuously with one melody. “The melody arises at the beginning of the piece, but then it quickly sinks into the music,” says Joost. “It reappears in all kinds of ways, but you hardly ever hear it completely. Only at the end does the melody return, starting with the bass instruments. Then it develops until the whole orchestra is playing."
Music from three centuries in one afternoon. The 40-year-old Goois Symphony Orchestra closes its jubilee year with this concert on June 18.