Tenso Days Amsterdam, October 15-18, 2009
The annual Tenso Days, an international choir festival, presents concerts by the Tenso member choirs and by other European professional chamber choirs invited for the occasion.
Tenso Days are organized by member choirs in their resident country, in cooperation with many prominent venues.Tenso Days have been organized in Paris (Cité de la musique), December 2005 and June 2007 ; in Berlin (Radialsystem V), November 2006 ; and in Riga (Latvian University Hall), October 2008. Several major new works for choir by European composers have been premiered during these events.
Nederlands Kamerkoor and Cappella Amsterdam hosted Tenso Days 2009 in Amsterdam, taking place October 15 to 18, 2009 in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ.
The theme was THE CANON OF THE XXth CENTURY. Schönberg, Messiaen, De Leeuw, Poulenc, Xenakis, Schnittke and Pärt together with premieres of living European composers.
The choirs that performed :
Nederlands Kamerkoor • Latvian Radio Choir • accentus • Cappella Amsterdam • Eesti Filharmoonia Kammerkoor • Det Norske Solistkor
During Tenso Days, Tenso choirs worked with composers on the creation of vocal music for chamber choir. Amateur choirs joined in a competition for the performance of contemporary repertoire and a Sunday morning singalong. In four days, the Dutch public heard an excellent overview of all facets of the work of professional chamber choirs. On Friday 16 October, Tenso Professionals Day hosted guests from all over Europe, for symposia, informal discussions and workshops.