Who are you, and what gives you energy in your work—or what are you proud of?
I’m David Dramm, a composer and co-founder of Splendor. I’m originally from California, but I’ve been living in Amsterdam for around forty years now and lived nearby for a long time.
I’m incredibly proud of Splendor. We have 55 musicians from all over the world, playing an enormous variety of musical styles. Classical music, jazz, opera and world music all come together here.
Splendor is a playground and laboratory for our musicians. There is no artistic director deciding what gets programmed. Musicians can experiment without having to go through a lengthy process, start a new project together, record something in the studio or put on a concert. A lot of ideas simply emerge because people meet here and ask each other, “What are you working on?” Before you know it, a new idea has been born.
What might people who love the neighbourhood not yet know about Splendor, but really should?
That you get a genuine behind-the-scenes experience here. For example, there are no dressing rooms for the musicians to disappear into after a performance. You come in and sit at the table with them. After the concert, you can have a drink together and talk about what you have just heard.
In large concert halls, there is often a distance between the audience and the musicians. Here, that distance barely exists. Our members get to know the musicians, and vice versa. As a result, you also gain a better understanding of how music is made and what matters to the musicians.
Splendor is also made possible to a significant extent by its members. We now have more than 1,200. For €120 a year, they can attend 55 concerts and receive discounts on other performances.
What is a hidden gem in the Plantage for you?
I love art in public spaces, precisely because everyone can enjoy it. Amsterdam has many remarkable examples.
One of my favourites in this neighbourhood is the work of American artist Sol LeWitt. He was commissioned to create artworks for Februariplein and Koerierstersplein in the Plantage. Many people probably walk past them every day without knowing who created them or the story behind them. That is exactly what I love about art in public spaces: it belongs to the neighbourhood and is there for everyone.
Which remarkable Amsterdammer, past or present, would you like to meet?
Last summer, I composed the music for the musical Spinoza – de Mokum Musical at the Amsterdamse Bostheater. I would love to talk to Spinoza about how he would view our society today. I also love the idea that he was born just around the corner from Splendor.
Almost four hundred years ago, Spinoza was already thinking about freedom and the role of the individual in society. He dared to ask difficult questions, and many of his ideas are still surprisingly relevant today.
We have experienced tremendous change since then, yet many of the questions he explored remain just as relevant.
The previous interviewee, Wayne Modest of Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, has a question for you: “How can we work together to create a place where people can experience art and culture in all their forms?”
Fortunately, I don’t have to come up with the answer on my own! At Splendor, we have 55 creative minds who are constantly developing new ideas. Splendor is essentially a permanent laboratory for experimentation.
What Splendor and Wereldmuseum have in common, I think, is that many different worlds come together in both places—not only geographically, but also across time and history. There is an enormous wealth of knowledge among our musicians. One may know everything about a particular historical musical tradition, while another knows what music sounded like in Damascus two hundred years ago.
That means Splendor is not only a concert venue, but also a kind of archive of knowledge and experience. I would love to have coffee with Wayne sometime and explore where Wereldmuseum and Splendor might come together. For example, music could add a completely different dimension to an exhibition about a particular country or historical period.
Who would you like to see featured in a future edition of Faces of the Plantage?
I would like to pass the baton to Hotel Arena. I performed there in the past and still remember its special atmosphere. The audience came not only for the music, but also for the building and everything surrounding the performance.
Splendor has previously organised projects in which visitors walked from one location to another, experiencing small, intimate concerts along the way. I would love to do something like that at Hotel Arena. The building has so many different spaces: you could start in the chapel, continue through the hotel and finish in the restaurant.
My question is: “Would Hotel Arena be interested in creating a musical route through the building together with Splendor, with visitors encountering small concerts in unexpected places?”