This week I had a very nice meeting with René Uijlenhoet, head of the compostion department of the Rotterdam Conservatory (Codarts). Their composition class is going to be a part of the Thereminfestival.nl, which is great news.
 
I will give two guest lectures, the first one being a brief history of the instrument and also about already existing repertoire. The second lecture will be a pracitical one: I will demonstrate the Theremin and together with my colleagues I'll demonstrate the Theremincello in some electrio's. The reason for this is because we will ask the students to write new electrio's (for space controlled Theremin, Theremincello and piano). Students may also choose to write for only Theremin or only Theremincello or any variation they like. Hopefully this will be the start of some exiting projects resulting in beautiful new repertoire for the instruments.
 
The grand finale of this project will be at the Thereminfestival.nl in June 2012, there Lydia Kavina, Barbara Bucholz, Marieke van der Heyden (t-cello), Thijn Vermeulen (piano) and I will play the newly composed pieces in two concerts one at the Festival stage in Dordrecht and a second one at the conservatory in Rotterdam. The concert will also feature some older original theremin music taken from the repertoire of the players. I for instance will definitely play the Nocturne by Thierry Besançon, which is my alltime favorite Theremin piece.
 
All in all some really interesting stuff to look forward to, if all goes as planned the Thereminfestival.nl will be a great success if only for the newly composed pieces!