Early in the morning, the Oude Kerk is a meditative oasis in the city. Since 2017, on every first Friday of the month at 8 a.m., when the rising sun casts its light through the church’s towering windows and the neighbourhood slowly wakes up, visitors can enjoy the Silence music programme. The concerts celebrate the acoustics and space of the Oude Kerk, which invites mostly young, experimental musicians. There are no fixed seats; visitors are welcome to walk around and discover what the music sounds like in different places in the church.

On the 4th of March, a few days before International Women's Day, two young female composers performed at the Oude Kerk: Andrea Guterres and Wilma Pistorius. They were working that year on the composition series 40 Ways of Being (a Woman), the first part of which premiered at the Oude Kerk, performed by singer Viola Blache and organists Elisabeth Hubmann and Jacob Lekkerkerker.

Andrea Guetteres initiated the project 40 Ways of Being (a Woman), in which three female musicians dedicate a series of concerts to the subject of being a woman in today's world. The project connects historical perspectives on gender with the urgency to trascend binary terms and to think beyond patterns of objectification and classification, gender and sexuality. Together with composer Wilma Pistorius and singer Viola Blanche, Andrea was working towards the premiere of the complete composition, which took place at Het Orgelpark in Amsterdam in the autumn of 2022.

Materials

Organ pipes, instruments

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