January 9, 2021

André Rieu thinking about selling Stradivarius to save orchestra

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 12:21 pm

André Rieu

World-famous Dutch violinist and conductor André Rieu, who featured on Dutch stamps and in an Australian soap opera, is considering selling his Stradivarius violin to keep his orchestra afloat.

The 71-year-old conductor is having a hard time doing nothing. Like many of his peers, he really misses performing. Rieu says he is ready to do everything to avoid firing his staff. Before that happens, he’ll sell his what should be a 1667 Stradivarius, which, for anybody who doesn’t know, is worth a few million euro, if not more.

Hopefully Rieu will be able to perform in his home of Maastricht, Limburg in the summer of 2021, but nobody should be holding their breath at this point.

(Link: ad.nl, Photo of André Rieu by Charlie1965nrw Some rights reserved)

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December 25, 2020

Christmas time at 24oranges HQ

Filed under: General,Music by Orangemaster @ 1:50 pm

What a year! Who doesn’t need a break? We really do.

As far as postings go, we had a tough time keeping up in general this year, but a lot stuff has been sorted to be able to post more regularly. We’ve upgraded a lot of things in the background.

It’s Christmas day now, and the plan is to eat easy-to-make yet but nice Christmas food and watch a few Christmas classics.

Like every year, co-blogger Branko will come up with a list of his favourite stories of 2020, which should be online at some point.

If you need very different Christmas music, there’s always our friends at Christmas a Go Go!

Happy Holidays from 24oranges HQ! Stay safe and stay sane!

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December 3, 2020

Dutch Christmas song ‘Flappie’ gets American version

Filed under: Animals,Music by Orangemaster @ 10:12 am

Rabbit

‘Flappie’, the song about a Christmas rabbit written and sung by Dutch comedian Youp van ‘t Hek, a celebrity who has coined many catch phrases, has recently been covered by major American music figure Todd Rundgren who apparently likes to cover ‘obscure’ songs.

‘Flappie’, has become ‘Floppy’, which is a great name for a rabbit in English. I have not been able to find out the translator is as they’ve done a fine job, even according to Van ‘t Hek. Rundgren, who has performed in the Netherlands countless times according to music magazine Oor, is said to have made his version more dramatic than the original. One online criticism was that the new song was musically too busy, but I think it matches the story.

All I want is to know who the translator is to admire their work since translators are too often ignored.

Here’s the English version by Todd Rundgren:

Here’s a nice live version of original Dutch by Youp van ‘t Hek:

(Link: oor.nl, Photo of Rabbit by J Ligero & I Barrios. Some rights reserved)

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October 7, 2020

Guitarist Eddie Van Halen passes away, aged 65

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 2:24 pm

Dutch-American guitarist and arguably the heir to the technical guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix, Edward Lodewijk van Halen, better known as Eddie van Halen, passed way yesterday at age 65 after an ‘arduous battle with cancer’, according to his son Wolfgang (Wolf) van Halen who broke the sad news on Twitter.

Eddie van Halen was that unmistakable high end, loud guitar sound of 1980s rock band Van Halen. As well, he also guest starred on many other songs, including ‘Beat It’ by Michael Jackson in 1982.

Sticking to the Dutch angle, here’s all of Van Halen running around downtown Amsterdam in 1981, courtesy of Dutch music program Countdown (in English):

And because we all want to know if Eddie spoke Dutch, here he is with his brother Alex, also Van Halen’s drummer, speaking some Dutch (English subtitles).

Now go put some Van Halen on.

(Link: nu.nl,
Photo of Eddie Van Halen by Carl Lender, some rights reserved)

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September 2, 2020

Zaandam street reverts back to ‘gay sounding name’

Filed under: Architecture,Music,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:47 pm

In 2018 the city of Zaandam, North Holland was dealing with a tempest in a teacup: a street called ‘Hobo’ (‘Oboe’) was turned into ‘Piccolo’ because folks said it sounded too much like ‘homo’, which is a homophobic slur, the equivalent of ‘faggot’. ‘Folks said’ is not very clear, but city hall picked up on the discontent of some and decided to change instruments.

However, in 2019 the city went back on its decision, saying that it was hard to claim to be a ‘rainbow city’ (LGBTQIA-friendly) if they cater to the whims of a few people who didn’t like a street named after a musical instrument. Other Dutch cities have Hobo streets and that was never a problem. And just having a rainbow crosswalk is not enough these days to be truly LGBTQIA-friendly.

I went to Zaandam recently to see what the fuss had been all about. One very nice typical blue Zaandam-style house had a sign on the door that said “Hobo 14, former Piccolo 14”, which seemed to be for any kind of deliveries. Hobo street is barely a few hundred metres long. And why would I use another slur, ‘faggot’, to make my point? That’s because parallel to Hobo, there’s ‘Fagot’ street, which means ‘Bassoon’ in Dutch and nobody had a problem with that.

(Link: hartvannederland.nl)

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July 15, 2020

Efteling music composer Hartveldt wins in court

Filed under: General,Music by Orangemaster @ 3:19 pm

Composer Maarten Hartveldt, famous for composing the music heard throughout the Efteling amusement park, had his day in court recently and won one of the two battles he was fighting: getting paid more for his work. The other battle, claiming that his music was not akin to filling station music, he unfortunately lost.

For years Hartveldt had been paid a measly 198 euro a year for music that everybody associates with the Efteling and other locations, and decided that Buma-Stemra who is there to defend his rights was not paying him properly. The court decided that Buma/Stemra never should have paid Hartveldt as if it his creations were background music, adding that music in theme parks make up a significant part of the experience and atmosphere. However, the court also said that Buma-Stemra doesn’t have to expand its background music category, which Hartveldt fell under for so long.

Hartveldt’s music needs to fall under and be given the same consideration as music used for radio and television, based on the actual music used in the park. The music Hartveldt composed for the Efteling can be heard everywhere in the park by 5 million visitors each year since 2006 on almost 54,000 square metres of land.

(Link: bd.nl)

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June 2, 2020

Efteling music composer dissed as ‘filling station music’

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 1:10 pm

Composer Maarten Hartveldt is mainly famous in The Netherlands for the music he composed for the Efteling amusement park in Kaatsheuvel, Noord-Brabant, normally heard everywhere in the park by 5 million visitors each year since 2006 on almost 54,000 square metres of land. While the Efteling banks more than 200 million euro a year from its visitors, Hartveldt gets a measly 198 euro a year for his work.

Hartveldt is currently fighting Buma Stemra, the collecting society with a monopoly, as not only does the amount of money he received makes no sense, it’s been labelled ‘filling station music’ by them, adding insult to injury. Buma Stemra’s decisions are known to be unclear and random, a problem that has been pointed out countless times by others. The collecting society has a reputation for chaotic administration while employees get paid handsomely and composers have to beg to find out where their money is.

Later today the court of appeal will rule on the matter. In this case, it’s a long-drawn out situation where Buma Stemra blames Hartveldt for not filing certain documents properly, but in previous cases threw money at him right before hearings with no explanation, which makes it all very complicated.

Here’s some music by Hartveldt for when you park your car at the Efteling:

(Link: volkskrant.nl)

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September 3, 2019

‘Wonder phone’ plays music for dementia sufferers

Filed under: Health,Music by Orangemaster @ 12:09 pm

Eighteen-year-old Dutchman Niek van Weeghel together with collaborators Herbert van Til and Peter Fidder have modified some 55 old fashioned dial telephone to play songs for the elderly suffering from dementia.

“It’s nice to see how the elderly react when they pick up the ‘wonder phone’, Van Weeghel explains. “First, they are quiet and then you see that they recognised the song. Then they sing their hearts out along to it.”

A person picks up the phone, dials a number (something, if we believe YouTube, kids don’t even understand because they’ve only seen mobile phone) and then hears a song they would recognise from their younger days.

The team is also collecting old phones to make more wonder phones, which now costs about 30 euro each to make. And since it hit the media, many homes have asked to get their hands on some.

There are about 280,000 people suffering from some type of dementia in the Netherlands. In 25 years this figure is expected to reach more than 500,000.

Maybe they can also make phones that play music from other cultures for specific people.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo: Photo by Macinate, some rights reserved)

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March 26, 2019

Dutch singer Tim Knol finds his doppelganger

Filed under: Music,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:53 pm

We’ve written about Dutch singer Tim Knol, a down to earth performer who was the victim of a bad radio prank a few years ago and who has now found his doppelganger.

Knol recently found Daniel Skoglund from Sweden virtually, and funny enough, Skoglund is also a singer with a guitar. Knol posted on Twitter that he had found his doppelganger (see pic).

Skoglund performs under the name Songs of Boda and was just as surprised as Knol about the discovery. Both of them made jokes about their parents possibly getting ‘their lines crossed’. As well, both men make the same kind of singer-songwriter music. Yes, I want a duet soon, too!

They are planning to meet in real life and like each other’s music.

Here’s Tom Knol signing in English:

And here’s Songs of Boda, with Daniel Skoglund:

(Link: nhnieuws.nl)

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March 8, 2019

Dutch Eurovision entry is a modern power ballad

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 8:26 pm

Relatively unknown artist Duncan Laurence will represent The Netherlands at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, Israel with the song ‘Arcade’.

The first Semi-Final will be held May 14, the second Semi-Final on May 16 and the Grand Final on Saturday, May 18. At this point, we don’t know what day Duncan will be performing in the semi-finals. However, a quick look at the Internet says Duncan has a good chance of scoring, as long as he sings with a lot of emotion, which he is prone to doing.

According to Wikipedia, Duncan Laurence (aka Duncan de Moor) started his musical career at the Rock Academy in Tilburg, Noord-Brabant playing in a number of school bands. He graduated from the school in 2017 and participated in the fifth season of The Voice of Holland, under the coaching of Ilse DeLange.

You may know DeLange as one half of The Common Linnets (Waylon was the other singer) who in sang ‘Calm After the Storm’ in 2014 and picked up second place. A downside to this song is that there’s no ‘boom’ or anything at the end, it ends quietly after a mild build up and that usual makes the room quiet.

Listen to the song here yourself and we’ll see how that goes in May.

(Link: eurovision.tv, Photo of Guitars by tarale, some rights reserved)

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