On Thursday, the Cello Biennale starts in Amsterdam, one of the largest celloevents in the world. There is classical, jazz, pop, world music, bothtraditional and more modern. If only there was a cello in it. Among the bignames are many young talents. NRC spoke to Benjamin Kruithof and ChiekoDonker Duyvis, and asked them which cellists on the program inspired them:
Benjamin Kruithof – ‘Cellists are lovely people.’
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Benjamin Kruithof won the previous National Cello Competition, which is why heis allowed to perform at this Biennale with a large symphony orchestra. “Ihave always associated playing the cello with pleasure.”
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Benjamin Kruithof.
Photo Merlin Doomernik
Anyone with a passion for languages and accents is highly recommended tostart a conversation with cellist Benjamin Kruithof (23). He speaks acourteous and colorful mixture of languages in each other’s accent: Dutch asthe basis, but the mixture you get when you have a Dutch father and a Flemishmother. He pours a Luxembourg-French sauce over it, because Kruithof was bornand grew up in Luxembourg. And that time in German, because he has been livingand studying classical cello in Berlin for five years now. Kruithof: “At homewe always spoke Dutch, but I must have a small accent, don’t I?”
The Kruithof family had a complete string quartet at home: mother plays theviolin and sister too, father plays the viola. Benjamin was also the first toget hold of a violin and a viola, but he soon “let those instruments be”. Hedid not find the viola exciting enough, because his father was much too niceas a teacher.
A family friend and cello teacher gave him a cello at the age of six and agreat first impression of the instrument. “He left the technique for a while,but started making me enthusiastic about the music. We only played bits that Iliked. That is why I have always associated playing the cello with pleasure. Ithink that’s why I still like to practice so much, even things that aren’treally necessary. I like to sit down with friends in the evening to sidereading. Then we just grab sheet music from one or the other and we’re goingto try that out.”
Prices
At the previous Cello Biennale in 2020, Benjamin Kruithof convincingly won thecorresponding National Cello Competition. He received the first prize, theaudience prize and the prize for the best performance of the commissionedcomposition.
Among other things, he ended up with a lot of concerts in the Netherlands,enough to meet his goal of being in the Netherlands once a month (also forfriends and family). That turned out to be great, because “playing a lot ofconcerts teaches you things that you can’t learn in a rehearsal room: dealingwith stress and situations that demand just a little too much of you,rehearsing repertoire in a very short time; it makes you much moreprofessional.”
On a scale from experimental crossovers to purely traditional classical,Kruithof tends most towards the latter. Although he has recently been infectedby his more experimental Berlin fellow students. “I’m just really bad atimprovising. But as classical performers we can learn a lot from jazz and pop,especially in terms of freedom of form. We classics want to do everything asprecisely as possible from a book, and I am a big proponent of that, butsometimes we get so stuck in a score that we forget to play spontaneously. Iam now discovering that in Berlin.”
Catastrophically bad composer
That does not mean that he will be composing himself in the short term. “I’vetried, and I’m a catastrophically bad composer. I do not know why. I wouldadvise against buying a composition by Benjamin Kruithof at this point.” Buthe likes to improvise on his own evenings for fun. “As a musician you shouldnot forget that music is also your hobby.”
Kruithof has only just come out of another competition: he won the GeorgeEnescu competition in Bucharest, Romania in September. After that it was timeto recover. He therefore sees playing at the upcoming Biennale, also one ofthe prizes won in 2020, as a great start to his ‘new season’. He plays withthe Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory of Amsterdam Poeme by HenriëtteBosmans, so unknown that he even managed to surprise his teacher in Berlin(“What a good piece!”).
In any case, his fellow cello students in Berlin are quite jealous. “Theywould all like to come along. The Biennale is the largest cello festival thereis, all cellists know it. It is unique that you are suddenly together in thesame building with only cellists, people who normally travel around the worldindividually. And it helps that cellists are lovely people. You don’t feel anydifference between generations, between newly arrived and young talent. It isa very inspiring place for a young cellist.”
Chieko Donker Duyvis – ‘Magic comes from being vulnerable.’
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As a child Chieko Donker Duyvis fell for the versatility of the cello, but asa classical conservatory student she felt caged. “I actually like being achameleon.”
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Chieko Donker Duyvis.
Photo Merlin Doomernik
Sometimes she strums like her cello is a guitar and sings a Brazilian song togo with it. Or she strokes broad lines and hums a cantilene above it –simultaneously, searchingly. As a child, cellist Chieko Donker Duyvis (1997)was happy with everything that was creative. To play. Draw. To sing. Writingstories. Playing the cello was one of those things. At fourteen, in additionto secondary school, she went to the young talent department of the AmsterdamConservatory “to learn to play better”.
It worked. “At the conservatory I learned to play the cello well, technicallyI now have a solid foundation,” she says in an Amsterdam cafe. But in thoseyears she often felt searching and unhappy. “Everything revolved aroundperformance, perfection, the endless polishing of all the cracks.Individuality and fun were secondary to this. That didn’t feel right, Ithought it was suffocating.”
Those who receive classical training participate in a well-oiled, hyper-competitive structure. “Getting out there because you want ‘somethingdifferent’ is quite something,” says Chieko Donker Duyvis. “I used to writeand sing my own music at home, secretly. I didn’t know exactly what I wantedyet. It felt like I had to come out with my creative side.”
Improvising with cello and vocals
Only when she distanced herself from the performance cult did the actuallysimple answer sink in: “I have a strength in me that comes out better as asinger, composer and improviser than as a classical cellist. I’m going to makemusic in a way that makes me happy.”
She took jazz lessons, studied vocal technique, improvisation and composition.“My curiosity was finally allowed to play a role again, and with that the funreturned. I now see myself more as a maker who tells a story using cello andvocals. The two increasingly merge into each other in my improvisations. Ienjoy working with dancers, artists and theater makers to keep learning andexploring uncharted paths.”
Her Dutch father and Brazilian-Japanese mother, both artists, encouraged herto remain open to everything, she says. Formative experiences were also hermany trips to Brazil. “The warmth and spontaneity, the freer way of expression– I miss that here. There, music is a much more natural presence in everydaylife. That is very connecting.”
She now also seeks connection in the concerts with her own ensemble, withwhich she plays her own compositions inspired by Brazilian music, jazz andclassical impressionism. The recording of a debut album is already in theagenda.
‘The Vermicelli family’
One of the other interdisciplinary projects in which she is currentlyparticipating – as part of the Cello Biennale – is the family performance TheVermicelli . family , in which she also plays the cello, sings and acts.“People often act as if you have to specialize, as if it’s always better. Butspecialization also means that you lose something: openness, contact. Iactually like being a chameleon.”
What she makes is “free but not without obligation”, she says. “I am really aperfectionist. I really want to touch people. The accessibility that thisrequires is hard work. First zoom in endlessly on all the details, then zoomout again and rediscover your spontaneous beginner mindset.”
Singing makes her life as a performing artist even richer. “It was scary inthe beginning. Singing is an even more direct way of expressing yourself thanplaying the cello: there I show my deepest feelings, my vulnerability. But theconnection you can feel with the audience from there is fantastic. Magichappens when you make yourself vulnerable. I will never forget the first timethat really worked: the premiere this summer of my own music as New Maker forthe Grachtenfestival. I had the feeling of blossoming singing and finallybeing myself on stage.”
Benjamin Kruithof and Chieko Donker Duyvis at the Cello Biennale. October20-29. Info: cellobiennale.nl