Over Grab it! van Jacob TV

Originally composed for tenor sax in November 1999 for Arno Bornkamp with financial support from the Dutch PFA, its world premiere took place at a concert called ‘Who’s afraid of…” at Vredenburg, Utrecht season 1999-2000. After a performance by Arno at the World Sax Congress in Montreal, July 2000 however, Grab it! became a repertoire piece for the tenor sax and was by request arranged for several other instruments and combinations. Growing up in the 60s with blues, jazz and rock, American music had a strong impact on JacobTV. Language is one of the origins of music, which is for instance obvious in blues. In Grab it!, the ‘no-man’s-land’ between speech and music is explored. Speech becomes music, when people get emotional. Like crying and singing can become one…Grab It! is based on speech samples from life-sentenced prisoners. Their verbal vitality and aggression matches the harsh sound of the tenor sax. Grab it! is a competing duet, a ‘battle’ if you like, for tenor sax and speech grooves in unison. The sax ‘competes’ with a non-stop range of syllables, words and one liners, demanding endurance from the performer. In jail suicide is not uncommon: ‘He tied one end around the pipe, and he hung himself. So he went out the back door rapped up in a green sheet with a tag on his toe….You lose everything!‘ But Grab it! is not just sad, it can also be understood as a ‘memento vivere’. Death row as a metaphor for life: Life is worth living. ‘Grab it!’

Programma

Johann Ernst GalliardSonate nr. 5Mike ForbesThe Grumpy TrollTorbjorn Iwan LundquistLandskapRob DirksenThe TubeJacob ter VeldhuisGrab It!Daniel SchnyderZoom in

Uitvoerenden

Perry Hoogendijk tubaen musici van het Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest