Ig
Henneman viert 25-jarig jubileum met tournee Kindred Spirits
Ig
Henneman, componist en bandleider viert in december 2010 haar 25-jarig jubileum
én haar 65ste verjaardag. Zij gaat op tournee met een nieuwe internationale
band het Ig Henneman Sextet.
In het
programma Kindred Spirits presenteert Henneman met haar collega-kindred spirits nieuwe
composities en improvisaties; een hommage aan geestverwanten zoals Thelonious
Monk, Emily Dickinson, Jimmy Giuffre, Ian Dury, Natalia Ginzburg, Galina
Oestvolskaya, Morton Feldman, Mink DeVille, Sofia Goebaidoelina, Kate
McGarrigle, Misha Mengelberg en Francesco Landini.
Ig Henneman
neemt een bijzondere positie in binnen de muziekwereld. Ze pioniert in de jazz-
en improvisatie muziek als componist/bandleider/altviolist en in de klassieke
hedendaagse muziek als componist. Met dit 25-jarig jubileum verbindt ze de
sleutelmomenten uit haar muzikale leven met geestverwanten uit de muziek en de
literatuur.
“Na
jarenlang met het Henneman String Quartet te hebben gewerkt werd het tijd voor een nieuwe band.
Dit jubileum is daar een goede aanleiding toe. Ik heb door de jaren heen veel
musici ontmoet maar weinig geestverwanten. Het nieuwe Ig Henneman Sextet bestaat uit geestverwanten waar ik
een geschiedenis mee heb en één nieuwkomer; saxofonist klarinettist en
shakuhachi speler Ab Baars mijn geliefde partner in leven en muziek met wie ik
ook al tien jaar het Duo Baars-Henneman vorm, bassist Wilbert de Joode mijn soul mate
gedurende al mijn jaren als bandleider, basklarinettiste Lori Freedman en
pianiste Marilyn Lerner de Canadese collega’s waarmee ik de laatste jaren
geweldige concerten heb gespeeld in het Queen Mab Trio, en nieuwkomer in mijn carrière als
bandleider de Berlijnse trompettist Axel Dörner; ik volg hem al jaren en dit
project leek me een uitgelezen kans om hem nu uit te nodigen." -Ig
Henneman
De Kindred
Spirits-tournee
bestaat uit zestien concerten in Nederland en Europa. (Zie ook de speellijst op
http://www.stichtingwig.com/) Twee van de Nederlandse concerten
worden uitgebreider geprogrammeerd: de Nederlandse première in Henneman’s
geboortestad Haarlem in de Philharmonie op zondagmiddag 12 december, en het
feestelijke slotprogramma op zondagmiddag 19 december in het Bimhuis te
Amsterdam - waar zij tevens haar 65ste verjaardag viert.
Ter
gelegenheid van dit jubileum is een speciale CD-box uit de Wig-catalogus
samengesteld, met een selectie van vier CD’s en een DVD. En er verschijnt een
boekje over het oeuvre van Henneman met foto’s, en commentaar/interviews door
Mischa Andriessen en Anne La Berge.
Beeldend
kunstenaar en broer Jeroen Henneman levert een bijdrage aan de vormgeving.
I
met the Dutch composer/performer and bandleader Ig Henneman when I first
arrived in Amsterdam in 1989. Even though her career as a composer/performer
was still in its early stages, I was already deeply impressed by the sheer
diversity of her activities. Improvising on the viola and composing, not only
for her own bands, but also for ensembles of all shapes and sizes, she was
already making her stamp on the Dutch music scene. On a more personal note, I
felt immediately that we shared a dedication to extremes in structure and a
belief in improvisation as part of our musical languages as
composer/performers. In 2007, I commissioned the work Bow Valley Whistle for flute and samples. During our collaboration
I learned even more about how Ig composes and the reasons behind the aesthetic
choices she makes. I have enjoyed performing this quirky and very personal work
worldwide. When Ig mentioned that she would be celebrating her twenty-fifth
anniversary as a composer/bandleader and
her sixty-fifth birthday this year, I thought it these milestones would be the
perfect occasion to have an extended chat about her life and work.
We
talked at the dining table in my apartment just outside the center of
Amsterdam. Ig has just peeled off multiple layers of rain gear after a
courageous bike ride across town through heavy Dutch showers. We’ve had our first cup of tea and bites of
the chocolate cake that Ig has brought from one of our favorite bakeries nearby
her apartment in the center of the canal district.
This
interview was done for the Women and Music Foundation in recognition of Ig
Henneman's twenty-fifth anniversary as a composer/bandleader and her
sixty-fifth birthday. The title is in reference to the many choices Ig has made
throughout her wonderfully abundant and multi-faceted career.
An interview of Ig
Henneman by Anne La Berge - August 2010
Composer/performer
Ig Henneman celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary as a composer/bandleader
and her sixty-fifth birthday this year. As part of the celebration, she will be
touring with her new international Ig Henneman Sextet. The compositions and
improvisations in the sextet concert program include homages to some of her
artistic soul-mates including Thelonious Monk, Emily Dickinson, Jimmy Giuffre,
Ian Dury, Galina Oestvolskaya, Misha Mengelberg, Morton Feldman en Francesco
Landini.
This
anniversary tour is a celebration of the pivotal moments in Ig Henneman's
career as composer/violist/bandleader in both the modern classical music and
improvisation worlds and includes a select group of musicians that Ig regards
as musical kindred spirits.
In
her own words, Ig sees this project as another step forward. "I have
worked for years with the Henneman String Quartet and I feel like it's time for
a new band. This anniversary is a good reason to form a new group. Through the
years, I have met many musicians but few kindred spirits. The new Ig Henneman
Sextet consists of kindred spirits that I have built a history with and one
newcomer. They are Ab Baars on saxophone, clarinet and shakuhachi, my partner
in life and work; Wilbert de Joode on bass, my soulmate in all the years I've
spent as a band leader; the Queen Mab Trio, Lori Freedman on bass clarinet and
Marion Lerner on piano, from Canada, with whom I’ve played many beautiful
concerts in the last eight years; and as “newcomer,” the Berlin trumpettist
Axel Dörner. I have also known him for years and see this as the right time to
invite him into the sextet. We start rehearsing three days before the first
concert. Because it’s an international group, there's not enough funding to
support a whole week of rehearsals. I prefer to rehearse very fast when
preparing for improvised-music concerts anyway."
A:
First off, would you give us a short description of your upcoming Kindred
Spirits project? Why did you develop the program the way you did and why did
you ask these specific players to join you?
I:
The first reason was that I will be celebrating my sixty-fifth birthday. It's a
silly reason because nobody is interested in my birthday but I wanted to show
my friends and family what I am
doing because I am proud of it. And then I realized that in 1985 I began my
career as a composer/bandleader when I started my first band, the Ig Henneman
Quintet. That was twenty-five years ago and those twenty-five years are worth
celebrating.
A:
And the rock band FC Gerania?
I:
That was nobody's and everybody's band. I was not the leader.
So
twenty-five years from when I started leading my own bands was a better reason
to have a celebration. It was in 1985 when I really decided that I had my own
taste. It's a small word, but taste is so important to have to know what you
really want to do. In 1984, the rock band fell apart and I wanted to improvise
more. I started collecting material and listening to New York improvisers. I
gathered many things around me and decided that it was time to have my own
band, be the boss and develop my own ideas. In general, I think that a band
with a leader always works the best. There was a huge period in the 60's where
people denied leadership and believed in the collective. In my opinion that is
a total misunderstanding of how things work and a waste of time. So I decided
instead that I wanted to have my own band. First I started collecting material
and, at the same time, I listened to a lot of musicians to find musicians that
I wanted to have in my band. I asked the guitar player, Regina Gorter, who I
already knew from FC Gerania. I wanted a bass player and discovered Wilbert de
Joode, who had impressive energy and dedication. He had been playing electric
bass and was just starting to play the double bass. He wasn't even using his bow when we first
started working together.
So
the quintet became Regina Gorter on guitar, Wilbert de Joode on bass, Theo
Bodewes on drums and Eric Boeren on trumpet. I worked with the quintet from
1986 to 1993. There were different formations during those years and Wilbert
was the only consistent member throughout. We made the CD 'in Grassetto’ that
was released in 1991.
A:
So you began collecting kindred spirits with your first quintet in 1985.
I:
Yes. Now after those twenty-five years I want to start a new band and I wanted to
give it something that reaches out to people. Offer a view on myself. That’s
why I’ve given this project the name Kindred Spirits. The people that I choose
to play with have been my inspiration and some of the most important people to
me in all those years. The list includes performers, composers, writers and
poets.
A:
Let's backtrack a bit. You spoke about Queen Mab. Why did you go so far away to
unite with these players in 2002?
I:
I was very tired at the turn of the century. I was fifty-five at that time. I
had worked so hard. Made a lot of CDs for my own Wig label, composed a lot, had
different bands and different projects, and I had to keep the Wig Foundation up
and running. I felt like I needed to get away from my life here. Maybe that was
one of the reasons. Lori and I always kept in touch after she played in one of
my Tentet projects and she sent me the Queen Mab duo CD "Close" that
had all different guests. I loved that CD so much that I just called her and
told her that if they ever wanted me as a guest I'll would be there.
During
our first (Queen Mab duo plus me as guest) tour we were traveling back from
Banff to Calgary by car I and said, “I think this is the Queen Mab trio now.”
They agreed. We were simply three independent musicians that wanted to play
together. It was not my band. Lori and Marion were at the point as free
improvisers where they wanted to explore more and move on to a new phase. I
brought in more compositional material. It was good for them at that time to
work with me and it was good for me to play with them because there was plenty
of room for me as an improviser. We all three kept adding more and more
material.
I:
Were you looking in other directions for something to feed you as an artist
then?
I:
Yeah, I wanted to play more and have less responsibility. Until then, I had
always been the band leader, nearly always the only woman, and all the stuff
that comes with that. I felt like the whole Dutch system was wearing me down.
People think that we are spoiled here in the Netherlands. Of course we are
spoiled because we have the system that supports the arts and our activities,
but it's not like we can simply hold our hand out and get money for our
projects. I had to learn so many professions to build my career: start a foundation,
serve as director, do the business, take care of the finances, manage a CD
label and organize the tours. It's totally insane and when I reached fifty and
kept running and running, it became harder for me. When I look back at that
period, I see that I had wanted to play the viola more. Because I was so
involved organizing and preparing the projects and concerts, I actually didn't
have enough time to work on my skills as a player in the way that I really
wanted to.
A:
Was that also the time when you and Ab started playing together?
I:
Yes. That was in 1999 and it was totally coincidental that it happened. We
wanted to take some time away from Amsterdam and we went to Rome. We met some
improvisers there and were asked to play as a duo on the Controindicazioni
festival in October. It was their idea. So we thought about it for a couple of
days and decided that, as long as we were there, we'd give it a try. We were
totally isolated from the world at that time because we were working every day,
the whole day. I was composing and practicing viola. Ab was practicing tenorsax
and clarinet. We had weeks and weeks to develop a program and to try things
out. Our festival concert was a huge success. People really loved it. And then
every time we returned to Rome we played a few duo performances. That was the
beginning. For the last five years we've played and toured together quite a
lot.
A:
Do you think your duo with Ab would have happened anyway, somewhere, somehow?
I:
I have no idea. Maybe not. If they hadn't suggested this, we may not have
discovered that we liked to work together so intensely.
A:
Do you and Ab usually work with one or two guests? I've seen you perform as a
duo, for instance at the Jazz Festival in Ottawa, Canada. That was a lovely
concert.
I:
We do a lot of duos, too. For instance, we’ll be at the Molde Festival in
Norway next week. But we like to include guests when we tour.
When
we celebrated our fiftieth and sixtieth birthdays together, we toured from
Amsterdam down to Palermo and we played in each city with a different guest.
That was really nice. We did all kinds of small concerts at clubs and little
festivals.
A:
So the duo will last forever?
I:
As long as I keep playing.
A:
Another long-term ensemble project is your string quartet. Did your quintet
sort of evolve into a quartet or did you stop one project before you thought
about the next?
I:
The quintet still existed when I formed the project on Emily Dickinson with the
first Tentet combination. I wanted to do a project using poetry and the work of
Dickinson spoke to me. The Tentet projects were all individual projects with
different combinations of players that I put together in the early 90’s. Those
larger projects gave me many possibilities for composition and instrumentation.
The quartet evolved out of the Emily Dickinson project. At that time I wanted
to have a smaller band that could do smaller things because working with a
group of ten people is totally insane. Too many people. You can use ten
musicians in a specific project but for touring a quartet is better.
A:
And why did you settle on a string quartet this time?
I:
I wanted to find out what I could do with strings alone. I listened a lot to
improvising string quartets. Most of them I didn't like at all. But I wanted to
try it out myself. And using the double bass is totally different from
composing for a classic string quartet instrumentation. Most of all, I wanted
to have more space for different volumes. That was one reason why my string
quartet was the first ensemble I put together that had no drummer.
A:
That sounds like a big move. Were the Tentets also amplified?
I:
We worked mostly with microphones. But with the string quartet we did a big
project called Westwerk where we
played in all kinds of little medieval churches. The concert was completely
acoustic and it was so nice that we were not amplified. I really liked it.
A:
Did you have sleepless nights wondering about who would be in your string
quartet as you were forming it or did it happen organically?
I:
The string players Wilbert de Joode, Tristan Honsinger and Mary Oliver were
already in my Tentet band and I had been working with these people for a long
time. It just felt right. The quartet lasted from 1994 to 2004. Ten years. We
had our last concert in 2004. I never decided to stop it. I became so involved
with the Queen Mab trio and with my duo with Ab at that time that I didn't
pursue concerts for the quartet. I was composing a lot and needed to divide my
time between composing, performing, practicing and management. When I look back
on the transition time between the quartet and my recent projects I see that
I've grown enormously as an improviser in the last eight years. I have a much
clearer idea what I can do and what I want to do. Of course, my technical
skills are not getting any better these days. I often describe myself as an old
painter that uses a rough brush but still knows exactly what she or he wants to
produce rather than depending on an array of virtuoso techniques. It is less
important for me to depend on so many technical skills than on my creativity
and resourcefulness.
A:
I recently heard a composer explain to me that she found it a shame that
singers lose their technique as they age. I think that many older performers
can offer such a rich palate of experience and character that the comparison
between technique and depth of experience is somehow irrelevant. Have you had
this experience as both a composer and as a performer?
I:
I learned to produce a viola tone that suits my own musical language much later
and I did it on my own. It was after my conservatory training and I was almost
thirty years old, I think. Now, after all these years, I finally love my
instrument.
A:
I can see that love when you play. Have you found a new home in the last eight
years or so?
I:
It's fantastic. I really love it. I think it has to do with deciding to go to
Canada and to play in a duo with Ab. That gave me the room to focus more on my
instrument. It was always there. Especially with the rock band. In the days I
played with FC Gerania I had a golden Barkus Berry viola, a very loud and ugly
instrument. One time I wanted to play a
single note in the intro of a song during a concert in Paradiso. As I was just
getting into playing a low C that I wanted to last forever, the drummer came in
and I lost my chance. Since that time I've always longed to do something that
is really mine and now I've found it. I trust that when I'm on stage these days
I can even surprise myself. It's such a good feeling.
A:
Let's talk about composition. That is yet another musical activity you pay
serious attention to. You've spoken about needing to make decisions regarding
how much time and energy you invest in practicing, performing, composing and
managing. Do you decide consciously each week or month how you'll juggle all of
these aspects of your musical life?
I:
I decide by the day and the month and the year. In retrospect, I see that
making decisions was somewhat dictated by need. By, "I have to do this and
I have to do that."
A:
Did you feel that you wanted to continue as a composer/performer and that you
needed the viola to do that?
I:
To be a composer/performer is such a luxury. As a performer, I have far more
contact with my audience. When I improvise (call it “instant composing”) on the
viola, I use my intuition in ways where there are no thresholds between soul
and sound. I don't have to deal with all the complicated baggage that fully
notated composing requires. I don't need to notate everything. The music is
immediately there and I don’t have to wait for other people to perform
it. As a performer I can share my music with colleagues on the spot. It is less
lonely than composing. And on top of that, improvising is an important
inspiration for my composing. It feeds my imagination. Enough reasons for
keeping up the viola.
A:
Let's look back a bit now. Bands, improvising and the viola have clearly been
deeply essential to your musical world. And then composition snuck in. You've
been actively composing in the two different streams since you were in your
early forties. But, at some point, you decided to seek a composition coach.
What led you to do that?
I:
That was a long time ago. I got a commission from the Leids Studenten Kamer
Orkest as part of a program of women composers. They asked me to write an
orchestra piece. I phoned Theo Loevendie to ask him what I should do. He said,
"just jump in the water and I'll help you." I knew him because I had taken counterpoint
from him in Haarlem when I was seventeen. After that first phone call, when I
every now and then got stuck, Theo helped me out. Later, I showed Ton de Leeuw
my film score and he told me that it was composed with verve. He seemed to like
my work but told me that I was too old to start being a composer. I was 40 at
the time. After that, I met up with Maarten Altena and he told me that he was
studying with Robert Heppener. Maarten had a similar strange background to mine
and I thought that perhaps Heppener would be good to work with. I had worked
with him when I was studying at the conservatory in Amsterdam and liked him. He
seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I only went to him when I needed
him to have a look at what I was working on. The first time I called him I was
totally stuck. His first advice over the phone was to say, "OK. When you
intend to sit at your table and compose at 9.00 am, then sit at your table at
9.00 am." We all know that this should be very simple to do. But it's so
true that one needs to be reminded to do it. The other thing he said on the
phone was "just write something down. Then you can throw it away." We
then made an agreement that I would write a short piece everyday. It felt very
good. I've used some of the material later. I did a bass clarinet piece with
him. He was very important to me for a certain period even though it was only
four times a year or so. I went all the way to Limburg to see him.
I
would never have dared to be a composer if I had stayed in the classical music
world. In that world, you have to feel like you're Mozart to compose. While I
was playing in the rock band I wrote songs and you know, every band in the
world needs songs. But later, when I
went back to my classical roots as a composer for totally scored pieces I felt
like I didn't know enough and thought that it would be good to have someone
coach me. In the end, I made a good decision to ask Heppener because our work
together was exactly what I needed. He told me ten years later that he had
found my material so minimal that he often wondered what I would do with it and
was impressed with my solutions. He gave me the confidence to keep searching
and looking for that unique trait I gave to my compositions.
A:
You come out of an unusually talented family.
Your brothers and sisters have all achieved respectable careers and some
of them are also artists. Did all of your siblings play musical instruments at
a young age as you did?
I:
Nobody. I was the only serious one. My brothers and sisters played a bit of
piano, recorder and guitar. My mother said that I always sat next to the radio
and listened to music. She also played a little bit of piano. Mostly old Dutch
songs. When I was five years old I wanted to play the piano. It was my thing.
A:
And even though you were such a successful young pianist, was it your choice to
move on to violin?
I:
Yes, I dreamed about playing the violin. My mother told me just to keep playing
the piano but finally I got a violin. You know, children mostly choose
something that belongs to them, that suits them. I was too lonely playing the
piano and I wanted to play with other people. I even remember that I was very
proud that I could show off that I was a violinist while walking through the
streets of Haarlem with a violin case in my hand.
A:
And when did you change to the viola?
I:
While I was playing in ASKO, (*) I switched to viola. I loved it. I started
playing with ASKO as a violinist but at that time they needed a violist. After
that I studied with Louis Metz here in Amsterdam and Erwin Schiffer in Tilburg.
A:
The viola has a specific historic baggage and a special sound. What is it about
the viola that you love?
I:
I love the range of the instrument. I'm not a fan of high pitched instruments.
I like male singers more than absurdly high virtuoso voices. The conservatory
education and discipline for the violin is totally linked to virtuosity and
that didn’t grab me. I wanted to play contemporary music and the viola suited
me much more. I could make my own choices about the sounds I used and make my
own interpretations without all that history on my back. And the viola
tradition is more lazy. Its more about filling in the parts. Now I understand
why I liked playing it in an ensemble such as ASKO. For a composer its very
nice to sit in the middle of an ensemble. I could hear all the low instruments
and I enjoyed the musical roles the viola played.
A:
When you look back at your career moves, can you think of any that stick out?
It sounds to me like your story is a wonderful series of developments.
I:
It just happened intuitively. I never made a career plan. When I played with
symphony orchestras I simply knew that I did not want to be there. There were things
that I clearly did not want to do but I wasn’t sure what I did want to do. I was curious and wanted to try things. I remember
when I was in the rock band and I wrote my first song. It surprised me that
there were things in me that I had to say. My inner voice said to me,
"Hey!! I love to make songs!"
One
of the papers I wrote in high school was about blocks with black and white
people scratching their nails on the blocks. While I was writing I realized
that I had a real need to write and to create. That surprised me. I had a good
education at a girls' school and we had many music and art classes but it was
the time I wrote this paper and later when I made my first rock song that I
felt my creativity and my need to express something.
A:
As an outsider looking at your family, I would have assumed that the minute you
were born you were told that you were supposed to be creative.
I:
My father had his own business and we were a family of independent spirits
where everyone created their own opportunities. My mother was a perfect
organizer. She had been a teacher and she was very talented and creative,
especially in drawing.
A:
So you didn't feel that you were required to be creative?
I:
No, not at all. But I was required to take responsibility for what I wanted to
do. That's what we learned. Don't run away. Just do it. My mother thought that
creativity was what we needed to learn well. She supplied us with toys and
taught us crafts and how to use our hands early on. Being an artist is, of
course, something else. But I was used to feeling that I could create something
new. I also trusted that I could find people to help me or to teach me things I
wanted to learn.
A:
I think it's remarkable that you had the courage from early on to phone someone
up for help.
I:
When I was ten or eleven, I wanted to change piano teachers from the one I had,
Lottie Koekoek, to a man. My mother handed me the phone and told me to find
one. I had to do it all myself and I did it. That was part of my family
education. It's incredible when I see what parents do for children now.
A:
Shall we touch on your role as a woman in the Dutch musical culture?
I:
I'd like to talk about the woman thing in reference to the all-woman rock band
FC Gerania that lasted from 1977 to 1984. This experience was very, very
important for me. Not only did I start writing my first songs at that time but
we made our historical mark as women. We could play everywhere because it was
the second feminist movement here in Holland. I am actually a product of the
second women's movement. That was the time when my career started. In that band
we did everything ourselves and there were no men judging how we did them. This
was unusual then for a group of women musicians.
A:
Do you think about your career in terms of being a woman?
I:
After I was in FC Gerania, I didn't want to think about these things anymore. I
decided not to look at it. The only other time I looked closely at that chapter
again was in 1991 when I was involved in organizing the Congress on Women in
Music. I found it very important to have a central role in such an important
event for women. I have many things to say about women's issues but for myself
I try not to think about it too much. The only thing I would like to say is
that when I meet young women I like to hear their stories. When I see them
struggle with their careers in their thirties it is important to me to talk to
them and to encourage them to keep going. I feel like I can be a role model for
them.
A:
Do you consider yourself a role model because of your history?
I:
I don't know. I'm the only woman in Holland from my generation that does what I
do, as far as I know.
A:
I have one more question. If you would look at your career as if it were an image,
a film or an abstract form, rather than a list of events that you've
experienced, what would you see?
I:
I am very visually oriented. When I think about composing a piece I mostly see
geometric figures in my head. Similar to that paper I wrote in high school. But
I don't see my life as a visual image. Not like a Mondrian painting or
something. As I get closer to this upcoming anniversary tour and look back at
my life, I see my huge family and then my move to Amsterdam and then being
unhappy at the conservatory and then this blooming rock band and then all of my
own bands with their creative explosions and then now, in the present, as I, an
older woman, search for what is still possible for me to do. And I see that I
am looking forward to developing specific things that I want and need to do.
This
whole Kindred Spirits project is an enormous undertaking, like so many I've
done before. It feels different though, in that I realize that I know how to
produce this project in my own way and if bits go wrong, I'm too old to be
stressed. That is a very good feeling. In response to your question, I would
say that the colors of my life are less bright. This also has to do with the
fact that there are people around me who have died recently. In the applications
for funding for this project, I wrote that the sounds from this project could
range from a ferocious train to a totally abstract white painting. But that's
how I feel about my life too. There is more sadness and there is more peace.
* ASKO was one of the first new music ensembles in the
Netherlands. At that time it was still a student chamber orchestra
websites:
http://www.muziekencyclopedie.nl/action/entry/F.C.+Gerania
http://www.myspace.com/ighenneman