To the cookie settings To the main content To the footer
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)

The cutting edge

CvA Bigband
Fri 13 Feb 2026 20:15 - 22:05
Fri 13 Feb 2026
20:15 - 22:05
  • Fri 13 Feb 2026
    20:15 - 22:05
    Interval 21:05
    Grote Zaal
    Tickets

Program

20.15 / Grote Zaal / Main Program
Robert Graettinger Thermopylae / Incident in Jazz Too Marvellous for Words / Transparency / Untitled Original (Two in One) / Loverman / Untitled Original (For Frank) / Everything Happens To Me / City of Glass II 
Mátyás Seiber Jazzolettes 1 & 2 
Johnny Carisi Counterpoise #1 en #2 
En nieuwe composities studenten Conservatorium van Amsterdam 

22.00 / Grote Zaal / After-concert talk
by Hans Haffmans

Credits

CvA Bigband
First Years String Orchestra
Students of the Classical Music Department at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Robert Graettinger’s groundbreaking big-band palette

‘A new world is opening up here, something we have never heard before, otherworldly, the future’, wrote the Dutch music magazine Glorieuze Klanken in 1955 about the music of American jazz composer Robert Graettinger. His sound world remains as challenging and full of imagination today as it was back then. In an interview, Werner Herbers called Graettinger’s City of Glass an impressive piece, with ‘at the end [...] a tutti chord, nearly twelve-tone, fortississimo, that explodes like a bomb and blasts into the hall.’ 

Werner Herbers was always searching for long-lost scores of mid-20th century progressive jazz. His efforts brought back into the spotlight jazz composers who, over 75 years ago, found inspiration in modern classical music. At the time, big band leader Stan Kenton asked arrangers to write contemporary ‘concert jazz’. Graettinger’s compositions were the most progressive of the new works. And contemporaries like Carisi and Seiber established a distinctive chamber music style influenced by jazz.

Part of
Skip
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
Zoom in CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
Zoom in CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
Zoom in CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
Zoom in CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
Zoom in CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
CvA Bigband (photo Parcifal Werkman)
Zoom in

Related themes

Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Renowned conductors and talented students

Tribute to Werner Herbers

Still strikingly relevant / 12 + 13 Feb 2026

Put me on the waiting list

Wish list

Added:

To wishlist