GenZ Voice Recitals: Changing Light & Une Tournée Endiablée
Splendor and Stichting VoorUit are happy to present "GenZ Voice Recitals”. This series of four double recitals plus one triple recital offers the audience a fresh look at classical music through the lens of Generation Z. Twelve talented voice students from the Conservatory of Amsterdam and their duo partners take you on a musical journey around the world.
During this third leg, soprano Emily Pahlawan (UK/Iraq) and violinist Janna Maurer (Netherlands) weave art songs, folk music, and contemporary works into a recital with migration as its central theme. Featuring music by composers including Ravel, Delage, Holst, Brahms, Villa-Lobos, and Kurtág. After the intermission, soprano Angelina Posoven (Ukraine) and pianist/accordionist Adriaan Lips (Netherlands) will transport us to an early 20th-century cabaret, where a singer recounts her extraordinary adventures. A musical theatre performance with music and lyrics by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Joseph Kosma, Bertolt Brecht and André Prévert.
Changing Light: Songs of migration and belonging
Soprano Emily Pahlawan: Migration is the thread that runs through my life and through this recital. I grew up in the Middle East until I was fourteen, then moved to the UK, later Spain, and now the Netherlands. My British–Iraqi heritage means that my own sense of “home” has always been multiple and shaped by movement. At the same time, I feel I cannot separate my story from wider legacies of colonialism, war, and forced displacement which we continue to witness across the world today.
This recital is a way of making sense of these threads and journeys. Folk melodies that have travelled across borders; Greek songs arranged by Ravel, Delage’s colonial impressions of India, a Polish love tune on solo violin, an English Medieval text set by Holst sitting alongside Brahms and Schubert, whose songs of evening, grief, and tenderness echo with longing for homeland. Villa-Lobos draws on Brazil’s indigenous idioms, turning folk material into modern art music, and a legendary Arabic song made popular by Lebanese star Fairuz also appears in the programme. Two works frame the recital: Kaija Saariaho’s Changing Light, a prayer of renewal and meditation on our shared existence, and György Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragmente, fragments of poetry and sound that speak to alienation, transience, and the search for meaning in today's fractured world.
For me, music becomes a place to dwell when no single place can be called home. This programme is an invitation to reflect on migration — chosen and forced, historic and contemporary — and on how music can speak to our common humanity across borders.
Une Tournée Endiablée
This music-theatre performance blends the artistic heritage of Exiled Cabaret and elements of clowning, featuring such names as Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Joseph Kosma, Bertolt Brecht, and André Prévert.
A chanteuse of the early twentieth century recounts the extraordinary tale of her adventures — at times chasing a better life, at others escaping persecution.
Charming and playful, she engages the audience directly, inviting them to witness the journey of her countless transformations — each one shaped by fate or circumstance, both on stage and in life.
The chosen repertoire takes the audience through a rich emotional landscape of the human experience: love affairs, family drama, spontaneous trips, unexpected exile, a life both fancy and frugal, close calls, heartbreak, and moments of pure happiness. This is the story of a young woman, who has had to reinvent herself so many times, bringing her to a central question: Who is it that I choose to be?
Emily Pahlawan - soprano
Janna Maurer - violin
Angelina Posoven - soprano
Adriaan Lips - accordion/piano
The other stages of our musical world tour will take place on January 11, February 8, April 12, and May 9. Will you join us? Then purchase a discount pass for the entire "GenZ Voice Recitals" series before January 11th. You'll then attend all five concerts with a 10% discount.
Please note: passe-partout tickets will be available online later this week.
