MUSEUMNACHT
For the 2023 edition of the Museumnacht, a yearly event during which all museum in Amsterdam open their doors until 2.00 AM, Mattias Spee was asked to curate the program for the Pianola Museum. This small museum for self-playing instruments was very familiar to him. During Spee’s time at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, it was a stone’s throw away from his house in the Jordaan and as a member of the Piano Student Council, Mattias helped save the Pianola Museum from bankruptcy by organising student excursions to the museum and spreading a petition which ultimately led to the municipality keeping the museum open.
Musemnacht 2023 at the Pianola Museum
For the Museumnacht 2023, Spee curated a program centered around the pianist/composer. For the longest time it was only natural to both play and compose music for an instrument. However, in the past few decades, note-writers and note-players have been specializing more and more in their specific fields. Now there is a new surge of pianist/composers knocking on the doors of the Dutch music scene. Apollon Kalamenios, Elena Pisano and Aleksandra Tonelli joined Spee for a relay-concert that lasted all night. They each paired their own music with a pianola roll of a pianist/composer that has inspired them. Showcases of the museum’s self-playing pianos included performances by Béla Bartok, Roberto Firpo, Claude Debussy and Duke Ellington. The old and the new, united in an evening chock-full of music.
------------