Thursday, Sep 8th. Day 11

Last night, there was a session at a local bar called Hannekes Boom, hosted by a "techno jazz" trio. Apparently, techno jazz is drums, double bass, and saxophone, playing reggaeton-ish beats with melodies from popular dance songs. At first I was very skeptical, but it actually works. It didn't take long, however, for the swarm of (mostly freshman) music students from the Conservatory to take over and start jamming. It was quite funny to watch everybody scramble to be the "best musician" in the room by playing the fastest solo with the most notes. Musicality was defiantly at a premium, but hey, it was a jam session after all.

Today I woke up semi-early to practice, which is news in itself! Admittedly, I tend to be more motivated when there is direct competition, and there is certainly plenty of that around here! There are something like 40 jazz drummers in the department, and the only other exchange student is from the Manhattan School (gulp). After a quick hour warming up, I spoke with the man in charge of jazz ensembles. After a little wrangling, I was placed as the (only) drummer for the upperclassmen piano trio that works with vocalists. Pretty excited to play; I haven't played with a group for at least a month, and based on what I have heard so far, this group should be burning!

Today was also the first meeting of the Composers' Forum. I have never seen so many composers in one room, and from so many different countries! Far less than half are from the Netherlands, and there are only 3 Americans! I am quite excited for the semester to come. The only project I know of so far is our NMA monthly concerts. Alexes (the other American exchange composer) and I are (with the help of one graduate student from Turkey) are in charge of putting on, publicizing for, rehearsing for, and curating the November concert. I am anticipating we will have quite a hard time finding suitable pieces and players, since we basically do not know anyone as of yet. In any event it will be a great learning experience to be in charge of a concert!

Lastly, I just got back from a real Japanese Gagaku performance. Wow! I...I don't even really know what to say yet. It was quite intense...that much is for sure. I think it has something to do with the tonal language used; the modulations were almost exclusively ascending by half step, and there was no clear system of tension and release...so it just got more intense without ever releasing! Oh Amsterdam...what do you have in store for me next?!