Jacob ter Veldhuis (1951)
Paradiso : oratorio for soprano, tenor, sampler, female choir and orchestra (2000)
text: Dante Alighieri and Jacob ter Veldhuis
1. To Ignition - 00:00
2. Aurora - 03:27
3. Cielo del Sole - 09:38
4. Cielo della Luna - 12:14
5. Heaven on Earth - 14:10
6. A Sound from Heaven! - 25:05
7. Garden of Eden - 28:55
8. Heaven of Love - 35:37
9. Heaven of Lust - 39:30
10. Cielo di Saturno - 42:40
11. Heaven of Religion - 44:21
12. Nirvana - 49:09
13. Luce Divina - 51:53
14. Heaven of Narcotics - 57:23
15. Primo Mobile - 59:52
16. Empireo - 1:08:46
Claron McFadden, soprano (Beatrice)
Tom Allen, tenor (Dante)
Karel Gerritsma, sampler
Choir: Noord Nederlands Concert Koor
Orchestra: Noord Nederlands Orkest
Conductor: Alexander Liebreich
Jacob ter Veldhuis (aka JacobTV) is a Dutch avant pop composer. He started as a rock musician and studied composition and electronic music at the Groningen Conservatoire, where he was awarded the Dutch Composition Prize in 1980. During the eighties he made a name for himself with melodious compositions, straight from the heart and with great effect. 'I pepper my music with sugar,' he says. Jacob ter Veldhuis is preoccupied with American media and world events and draws raw material from those sources. His work possesses an explosive strength and raw energy combined with extraordinarily intricate architectural design. Ter Veldhuis makes superb use of electronics, incorporating sound bytes from political speeches, commercials, interviews, talk shows, TVangelists, and what have you - a colorful mix of high and low culture. Long queues at the box office for the four-day Jacob TV Festival in Rotterdam in 2001 already attested to the growing popularity of this composer, both in the Netherlands and abroad. His Goldrush Concerto, the Third String Quartet and several of his so-called boombox pieces like Grab It! became hits, and various choreographers have been inspired by his music. Early in his career, Jacob ter Veldhuis already stood up to what he called the 'washed-out avant garde', which made him a controversial figure in certain circles. He strives to liberate new music from its isolation by employing a direct - at times provocative - idiom that spurns 'the dissonant', which in his view reflects a completely devalued means of musical expression.
