“Miniatures of music and visual arts”, an initiative of violinist Tosca Opdam launches 2nd series recorded at Teylers Museum

Sat, Aug 1 - Thu, Dec 31  2020

New “Miniatures of music and visual arts” have been recorded and will be made available starting October 8. Following the first successful series in partnership with the Van Gogh Museum, the unique mini-concerts featuring renowned musicians from the Netherlands, will now take you to Haarlem where the worlds of music and visual arts collide at the Teylers Museum.

The second series, recorded at Teylers Museum, the first and oldest museum of the Netherlands. It offers a musical connection with themes from the work of John Constable in the current retrospective exhibition. (until January 31, 2021)

Miniatures II will be released in four editions October 8, 15, 22, 29, 2020 on a dedicated website, which also gives access to earlier concerts and gallery talks part of Minatures I.

“Miniatures of music and visual arts”, is an initiative of violinist and artistic director Tosca Opdam of this project. The  talented violinist who lives in New York City most of the time, was well underway with her preparations for her second Carnegie Hall recital in the Spring of 2020. Due to the pandemic the concert had to be postponed to next year and Opdam saw her busy schedule transform from busy to open. Tosca Opdam and her Toscata Foundation pivoted quickly and developed a new, online concert series uniting the performing and visual arts:

“Artists are among those whom the coronavirus has forced to live in a cramped ‘miniature’ way. Concerts have been cancelled and income has evaporated. However, musicians are individually working very hard on their careers, often without a safety net. Their talent, passion and persistence are admirable and that is why the Toscata Foundation is doing its utmost to guarantee a fair recompense for these musical endeavors.”

Miniatures includes a series of 12 short online concerts that connect art works to musical themes. The first series is inspired by a series of portraits of female artists, part of the current exhibition In the picture at the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.

The Teylers Museum, the first and oldest museum in the Netherlands, offers a musical connection with the romantic realism of John Constable, whose paintings will be exhibited at the Teylers from mid September 2020.

At the Ceramics Museum Princessehof in Leeuwarden, the work of Maurits Escher, born at this former city palace, will be the connecting theme.

The collaboration with these three museums will offer the musicians an additional possibility, nationally and internationally, to reach a global audience. During this pandemic, when these wonderful collections are not yet open for everybody to enjoy, museums are delighted by this opportunity to extend the exhibited works in another artistic dimension.

The concerts will be a mixture in instrumentation (solo, duo, trio), performed by:

Performers

The concerts will be a mixture in instrumentation (solo, duo, trio), performed by:

Tosca Opdam, violin,
Quirine Viersen, cello,
Lidy Blijdorp, cello
Dana Zemtsov, viola,
Petra van der Heide, harp
Vincent van Amsterdam, accordion

Every “miniature” will be around 12 minutes and includes a:

• Short introduction by the curator of the said museum
• Short introduction by Tosca Opdam
• Concert

Explore the first part of the Miniatures series recorded at the Van Gogh Museum here.