Part I.
And what does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity. There was a time when the machine ate in moderation…and what it ate was replaced. Now the machine is eating faster…much faster than it can be replaced… The machine is eating it all.
– William S. Burroughs
Is it possible to survey a landscape while standing in its midst? When I was asked to deliver a presentation on ‘The State of Dutch New Music,’ that was the first question that came to mind.
I think it’s impossible to give a comprehensive answer to this question at this point, and may never be possible. And we don’t need to, because history, despite what we learned in school, rarely consists of straight roads. It’s more likely to be made up of stately avenues, highways, sudden turns, intersections, back alleys, and dirt tracks. And often, you only hear the most interesting things after the fact, when the dust of history has settled a bit, and you suddenly discover something that had been hiding in a corner, out of sight from major events. It’s also possible to get lost in the landscape, especially in this day and age when we’re constantly bombarded with an endless stream of images, information, and yes, even music.
Tonight I’m going to share with you some observations I’ve made in the field. And perhaps I’ll even be able to point out some possible directions we’re heading.
Anyway, for a better view, I’ll climb up into my observation hut, look around, and listen.
Part II.
Before we explore ‘The State of Dutch New Music,’ I’d like to first place a few terms in context. Hopefully, this will make it a bit clearer what we’re talking about. In a time when confusion is practically the norm, creating frameworks (however inadequate) can offer us some clarity and guidance.
The question of ‘The State of Dutch New Music’ suggests several sub-questions:
* What is new music?
* What is Dutch New Music? In other words, is there such a thing as Dutch Music?
* What is the state of Dutch New Music?
Let’s begin with the second question: is there such a thing as Dutch New Music?
I think almost no composer here in the audience or elsewhere is concerned with the question of whether they write specifically Dutch music. You simply write music and happen to live in the Netherlands, or you’re Dutch and work from New York or Düsseldorf. If you’re lucky, you receive funding from a Dutch foundation to create your work, and you get started. So now you’re writing music: new music! It might be that simple. And perhaps that music will sound typically Dutch to others. That’s possible; people tend to pigeonhole things.
Then the first question: what is new music?
Historically, the Gaudeamus Festival stems from what you might call the tradition of classical academic composed music. Or, to put it bluntly, the composer likely studied at a conservatory, wrote a score (whether composed solely of notes or combined with other media), and presented that score to musicians who then performed it. Although the festival and the concept of composition have changed enormously over time, this definition of new music still plays a significant role in the programming of the Gaudeamus Festival and many other new music festivals and concert venues. I think it’s clear to everyone that new music at the Gaudeamus Festival means something different from new music at Lowlands.
The question remains: ‘what is the current state of Dutch New Music?’
The state of new Dutch music is healthy and increasingly diverse. There’s room for experimentation, cross-pollination of genres, and new sounds. Whether you like electronic beats, hip-hop, indie rock, or Dutch-language pop, there’s plenty to enjoy, and the horizon seems broad and open for the coming years.
– Chat GPT – on the question, “What is the state of Dutch New Music?”
About thirty years ago, as a percussion student, I attended the Gaudeamus Festival for the first time. The new music landscape was very different then than it is today. There was a vibrant ensemble culture (1996 was even declared the Year of the Ensemble), a state secretary who stipulated that 7% of the programming of Dutch symphony orchestras should consist of Dutch music, and composers could receive multi-year stipends to write in peace and with autonomy. Additionally, many developments that are now commonplace were already well established in Dutch musical life at the time.
It’s become fashionable recently, not least because of funding, to say that genres are fading and that everyone is just zapping through music history. In the Netherlands, however, we’ve had a lively and delightfully anarchic tradition of tearing down genre boundaries, sacred or otherwise, for decades. Think of composers who incorporated jazz, improvisation, and performance art into their work, like Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg, or Paul Termos, and more recently, 7090. Moreover, these composers often performed on stage themselves, a centuries-old tradition that became increasingly rare among composers in the last century, but which, to my great joy, is now becoming more common among a younger generation.
In the 1960s to 1980s, many composers and musicians were socially engaged. Their work directly responded to current events. This socially critical stance faded into the background in the decades that followed. Now, we’re seeing a new generation of composers who are speaking out and creating work based on activism and social engagement. They are putting issues like climate change, inequality, and racism on the map. During this edition of the Gaudeamus Festival, many of these socially engaged works can be heard. I do think, however, that a few decades ago there was more room for critical dialogue and experimentation in art and society in general. For a long time, there was a lively critical musical discourse: in specialized magazines like Keynotes, as well as in daily and weekly newspapers, composers wrote about their own and others’ music, often in highly polemical pieces. With a few exceptions, there seems to be little room in the media these days for a more substantive, critical discourse on art, and especially new music. I will discuss this space for criticism and experimentation, which I believe is necessary for a vital culture and society, later.
Finally, composing with electronics and experimenting with digital media has played an important role in new music in the Netherlands from the very beginning, and composers have been major driving forces in new musical and technological developments.
And this brings me to what I consider one of the greatest catalysts for developments in new music in recent decades: the rapid evolution and democratization of digital technology in particular. These developments are causing a true revolution and explosion of experimentation and creativity, giving birth to countless new genres and musical styles.
While until recently you had to resort to specialized studios, anyone can now create electronic music, a score, a video work, or an interactive installation at home using a laptop, iPad, or phone. The advent of the internet has made it easy to release your work without a publisher and make it accessible to musicians worldwide. It has also made it possible to share your music on streaming platforms without the intervention of a record label, and you can exchange ideas with colleagues on social media and announce concerts for audiences worldwide.
In short, technology has made it possible to create, distribute and promote music outside of traditional institutions such as record labels and publishers.
In my view, these are all positive developments because they give back a great deal of autonomy to creators. But it’s now clear that the consequences of technological innovation aren’t always positive. The downsides are well known; from climate change, screen addiction, brain rot, the exploitation of humans and nature, to the fear of the consequences of AI. For us musicians, too, the consequences of these developments are difficult to predict, and they will fundamentally change the course of new music in the coming decades. These changes raise countless questions that together we must find answers to in the coming years.
Answers to questions like: What are the consequences of the democratization of knowledge and craftsmanship for the profession of composer? After all, knowledge previously available only within institutions now seems to be there at the click of a mouse. You no longer need to go to a conservatory to create an electronic composition with a Digital Audio Workstation or write a score with Dorico. With AI, you don’t even need formal training; you simply enter the correct prompt.
The question therefore arises as to what the role of conservatories and other knowledge institutions will be in the future. The question of how to be visible as a composer amid the vast amount of music available online will only become more urgent in the future. In the past, record labels and venue and festival programmers determined what audiences heard. Now that the authority and role of professional experts has changed, but certainly not disappeared, and everyone has an opinion about art online, who decides what constitutes ‘good’ music and what doesn’t? The implications of this for the cultural subsidy debate, for example, are abundantly clear, as all opinions seem equally important.
The rise of smartphones and social media has also led to an increasing fragmentation of our time and attention. Can we, and do we want to, continue to understand longer and more complex forms of art in the future? This fragmentation also affects our collective memory, as it sometimes seems as if we’re forgetting history, as if we’re stuck in an eternal present. This also has consequences for our musical past, as many composers, even those who have recently passed away, disappear too quickly and unjustifiably from our memories and deserve to be heard again.
As we see, technology has given us much freedom and creativity, but it is also partly responsible for the increasing erosion of ‘free space’.
Part III.
I began my argument with a quote from the author William S. Burroughs. The process of the all-consuming money machine, which he describes so provocatively, has only accelerated and deepened in recent decades. One of the consequences of this process is the slow erosion of free space. In my view, this free space consists not of one, but of countless spaces, all intertwined and interconnected.
’It’s no accident that the efflorescence of cultural invention in London and New York in the late 1970s and early 80s (In the punk and postpunkscenes) coincided with the availability of squatted and cheap property in those cities. Since then, the decline of social housing, the attacks on squatting, and the delirious rise in property prices have meant that the amount of time and energy available for cultural production has massively diminished’.
-Mark Fisher – Lost Futures
For example, we have physical open spaces. This is the place where we can move freely, physically, without the pressure of money or politics. Think of spaces where artists can create their work or rehearse as a band, but also places where they can exhibit their work or give a concert or performance, for example. We have a serious shortage of these kinds of affordable spaces in the Netherlands. And it is precisely these spaces, alongside the more conventional venues, that are invaluable to culture. They are the places where experimentation and research can take place freely, and where artists and audiences can connect.
The free thinking space is the place in our minds where we can think freely and bounce ideas off each other without hindrance. It’s the place where you can create your work with complete autonomy. This, in turn, is the space for experimentation, but also for innovation, criticism, and controversy. In a time when we rarely have critical conversations about art, or when these conversations get buried under countless other (online) discussions, this space for exchanging ideas is crucial.
The free space of time and attention is perhaps the most recognizable for many, especially young composers and musicians. Creativity, after all, requires time and attention to develop. But if, as an artist, you lose a lot of that time and mental space to paying for your student loans, rent or groceries, there’s often precious little energy left for creating art.
Despite the many difficult issues we face now and in the coming decades, I am hopeful and believe we can and must reclaim our freedom and assert our autonomy.
This way, as composers, we can join forces with kindred spirits and organize our grassroots collective. We can organize concerts or festivals together, and thanks to the internet, it’s easy to start a record label, publishing house, or critical online magazine. If we can’t find the space for this, we create it by seeking out places that may not be intended as concert halls but where we can still offer a platform for our art, such as a garage, a vacant storefront, or outdoors. And perhaps we should allow a little more civil disobedience by squatting a building or organizing a concert in an abandoned tunnel.
We’ve reached the end of my presentation, and I’ve climbed down from my observation hut. As I’ve observed, I’ve become convinced that new music plays and will continue to play a major role in society, because there is and always will be an audience seeking inspiration, experimentation, and adventure. As artists, by reclaiming our free space, we can serve as an inspiration to society, because in a healthy democracy, new sounds, images, stories, and different perspectives are indispensable. In fact, the ever-increasing digitalization of our daily lives may even increase the need for warm human contact. Even something like AI will never be able to take away the purely human satisfaction of creating new worlds.
Bart de Vrees Amsterdam juli 2025