One Minute Symphony - Pema Bennardis
What would Central Station sound like if it were music?
In our One Minute Symphony, a conservatory student takes you to an iconic spot in The Hague and captures it in music, so to speak. Not much later, the Residentie Orkest plays this new composition. This time, Pema Bennardis, a composition student at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in The Hague, has the honor of writing a One Minute Symphony. Pema chose Central Station as his inspiration because it is a bustling place, with a starting point and an ending point, an arrival and departure. Everything is in motion, it is a place full of possibilities! She hopes to capture the energy and dynamism of this location in her composition.
"Early in the morning, the sun is rising, you enter the station and you see the buildings around you. Everything radiates power, everything is imposing. That stays on your retina. "
- Pema Bennardis
How does the orchestra experience collaborations with composition students?
We asked first violinist Ronald Touw. "In recent years, I have had the opportunity to meet dozens of young, talented people who have risen to the challenge and in one minute express an idea, a feeling, or an emotion with a completely unique palette of harmonies, discordances, melodies and rhythms, composed for the largest and most complex musical instrument there is: the symphony orchestra. And each time I was surprised and impressed!
"Pema has a very fresh way of composing and a special style of his own. That resulted excellent and successful One Minute Symphony. Next fall she will be heard again!"
- Sven Arne Tepl-general and artistic director Residentie Orkest
A high-profile initiative of the Residentie Orkest and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague is the One Minute Symphony, played at the beginning of Symphonic Friday. Normally composition students of the Royal Conservatory go out into the streets to connect with a resident of The Hague, in this time of corona the students are inspired by a location or a work of art somewhere in The Hague. A personal story transformed into music. That is only possible at Residentie Orkest.
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