Connie Palmen & Amsterdam Sinfonietta

Connie Palmen has a thing for the number seven. Her debut novel, "The Laws," had seven chapters, and now, especially for Scherpdenkers, she crafts a text around seven characters within the theme of 'metamorphoses'. The friend becomes a traitor, the angel turns into a devil, the woman becomes a poet, the fan turns into a murderer, love turns into hate, admiration into humiliation. Amsterdam Sinfonietta plays Richard Strauss's poignant Metamorphosen with an ensemble of... seven string players.

She is one of the Netherlands' best-known writers, Connie Palmen. 'Friendship', 'IM', 'Jij zegt het' and most recently 'Voornamelijk vrouwen' - all titles that appealed to many readers and sold very well. One of the most original thinkers of our linguistic area, she is a psychologist and philosopher in one. Ever-present in her work are issues of real and unreal, fiction and reality, identity and giving others significance. Richard Strauss wrote his Metamorphoses in the momentous year 1945. We are writing the final months of World War II. The 81-year-old Strauss looked back on the tragic destruction that took place in Europe and placed the words 'In memoriam' at the end of the work. Originally for 23 solo strings, the piece does not miss its impact in a somewhat smaller setting.

Please note: this concert is completely spoken in Dutch.