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Another Amazing Kickstarter ('A child said, what is the Grass' ..) has been published on http://crowdmonsters.com/new-kickstarters/a-child-said-what-is-the-grass/

A NEW KICKSTARTER IS LAUNCHED:

Backing this project is as easy as buying a track on iTunes, and the reward in return is also as easy as that, you will receive this unique track!

What are we up to? In The Netherlands one of leading fanfare orchestra’s has been inspired by the work of Walt Whitman and has dicided to assign one of Holland’s finest composers to write a new piece for soprano and band, based on Whitman’s poem, “A Child said, what is the grass“

The world première of this new concertpiece will be at the Dutch National Championships Finals, november 2017.

Mostly, the Netherlands are known for its windmills and wooden shoes. However, this tiny country has a rich history in banding, too. The fanfare orchestra is unique to the Low Lands. The fanfare orchestra as it is today, is what Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone and developer of the sax horns such as the flugel, baritone and tuba, envisioned as the ideal form of wind orchestra. The fanfare orchestra consists of a combination of sax horns and symphonic brass, and, of course, the four most common types of saxophones – soprano, alto, tenor and baritone.

Fanfare Orchestra DSS – performing at ‘Certamen International de Bandas Musica’ (Bunol, Spain)

As no orchestra is complete without a full percussion section, there is always a group of these most versatile musicians in a fanfare orchestra! The largest group in the orchestra is made up of the flugelhorns, which gives the fanfare orchestra its unique, warm sound. Even though you are unlikely to come across a fanfare orchestra outside of the Benelux region, fanfare bands are gaining in popularity and are springing up in unlikely places such as the Baltic states in Europe, in South America and Japan.

(DEMO: The Orchestra – ‘American Fantasy’)

Rob Goorhuis studied at the conservatories of Utrecht, Arnhem and Tilburg in the majors choral- and orchestral conducting as well as piano, organ (cum laude) and music theory.

During his long career as conductor and instrumentalist he has worked with various ensembles and as organ player he performed in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and Poland.

Goorhuis often acts as a jury member at competitions of wind orchestras and choirs all across Europe such as the Eidgenössisches Musikfest in Friborg, Lucerne, St. Gallen, National Swiss Championships for brass, the Union Grand-Duc Adolphe in Luxembourg, the Dutch Brass Band Championships in Zutphen and Groningen, the Swiss Open Contest and World Band Festival in Lucerne, the Flemish Open brass Band Championships in Mechelen, the European brass Band Championships in Ostend, the German brass Band Championship in Duisburg and Coesfeld and Euro brass Drachten.

As a composer he is autodidact. He composed many pieces for the national competitions of musicfederations. Rob was “Composer in Residence” of the National Youth Fanfare Orchestra and is connected as a teacher at the Academy of the Bund Deutscher Blasmusikverbände in Staufen (Baden-Württemberg).

Rob Goorhuis – Composer

In 2006 Rob Goorhuis was decorated as ‘Knight in the Order of Orange Nassau’, a high a Royal Dutch decoration for his services and commitment to the preservation of the Dutch music-culture and his extensive contribution to the brass band repertoire. He also is “person of Merit” of the World Music Contest Organisation.

Pieces by the hand of Rob Goorhuis are worldwide highly recommended and have greatly contributed to the development of the repertoire.

(DEMO: 1st act from ‘Quatre Moulins a Roue’ by Rob Goorhuis)

Fenna Ograjensek, soprano, is a highly appreciated opera singer in Holland and abroad. Besides opera see also performs concert repertoire, chamber music and new compositions by contemporary composers. She is known for her warm voice, musicality and connection with her audience.

As an opera singer Fenna worked with the Florida Grand Opera in Miami as ‘Young Artist’ for two years. She also worked with The Southern Opera, Central City Opera, Opera Omaha, New Jersey Opera Theater, Summer Opera Alden Biesen, Netherlands Opera, Opera Spanga and the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse.

Her concerts brought her to major concert halls throughout the world such as the Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall New York, Berlin Philharmonic, Berliner Dom, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Konzerthaus Freiburg. Her repertoire includes many major works such as Verdi’s Requiem / Brahms / Dvorak and Mozart, the 9th Symphony of Beethoven, Mahler 2nd Symphony, A Sea Symphony of Vaugh Williams and many others. She also performed several times for Aldeburgh Music UK, competed in the famous Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont USA, and she is a frequently asked soloist of ORSO Orchestra & Choral Society.

Recently Fenna starred as Mother (world premiere at Opera Holland: The Day After), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni at Opera Holland) and Dido (Dido and Aeneas)

Fenna Ograjensek – Soprano

Fenna Ograjensek first studied classical singing and opera at the Maastricht ‘Conservatory and continued her studies at The Juilliard School in New York where she earned her graduate degree. During her studies she followed masterclasses with Leontyn Price, Rudolf Piernay, Malcom Martineau, Thomas Hampson and Marilyn Horne.

Fenna has collaborated with many conductors as Laurence Cummings, Ed Spanjaard, Masaaki Suzuki, Bernhard Kontarsky, Stewart Robertson, John Stulen, Robert Hollingworth, Steuart Bedford, Per Otto Johansson, Enrico Delamboye, Maurice Luttikhuis Stefan Veselka and many others.

(DEMO: Fenna Ograjensek – ‘Summertime’ by George Gershwin)

Walt Whitman was born on May 31 (1819) as the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa Van Velsor. The family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Brooklyn and Long Island in the 1820s and 1830s.

At the age of twelve, Whitman began to learn the printer’s trade, and fell in love with the written word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible.

Walt Whitman – Author

Whitman worked as a printer in New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished the industry. In 1836, at the age of seventeen, he began his career as teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career.

In 1855, Whitman took out a copyright on the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which consisted of twelve untitled poems and a preface. He published the volume himself, and sent a copy to Emerson in July of 1855. Whitman released a second edition of the book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his lifetime, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more editions of the book.

In the early 1870s, Whitman settled in Camden, New Jersey, where he had come to visit his dying mother at his brother’s house. However, after suffering a stroke, Whitman found it impossible to return to Washington. He stayed with his brother until the 1882 publication of Leaves of Grass (James R. Osgood) gave Whitman enough money to buy a home in Camden.

In the simple two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on additions and revisions to a new edition of the book and preparing his final volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye, My Fancy (David McKay, 1891). After his death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery.

Along with Emily Dickinson, he is considered one of America’s most important poets.

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mother’s laps, And here you are the mother’s laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues! And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men? What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere The smallest sprouts show there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

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