Two winners Boy Edgar Price on one evening

Two prizewinners, and music taking shape right before your ears: in the run-up to the Day of the Composer, Classical NOW! presents an evening with Monica Akihary and Tony Roe, both winners of the Boy Edgar Prize: the Netherlands’ leading award for jazz and improvised music. You will experience two performances by musicians who continually reinvent their instrument, their voice, and their musical language. Expect music that breathes, responds to the moment, takes risks, and lets you hear up close how thrilling it can be when composition and improvisation challenge one another.

First, you will hear Monica Akihary, winner in 2023, with guitarist and composer Niels Brouwer. As BOI AKIH, they present Entangled, their new album released by ENJA Records: a Classical NOW! first. Akihary’s Moluccan background resonates in her vocal style, texts, and sense of colour. Together with Brouwer, she creates music in which voice, guitar, bass kalimba, shell and electronics complement and alternate with one another.

Then Tony Roe, winner of the 2024 Boy Edgar Prize, takes the stage with harpist Doriene Marselje, who has appeared at Classical NOW! before. Roe brings together elements of classical music, hip-hop, electronic music and Latin American rhythms. His work moves freely across genres, combining jazz with technology and a strong sense of invention.

Especially for Doriene, Tony Roe has written a four-part composition inspired by Curaçaoan rhythms and hip-hop basslines. You can expect a duo in which piano and harp do not simply sound beautiful side by side, but are stretched and transformed through electronics, analogue effects and unexpected turns. The music begins close to the instruments themselves: string, attack, resonance. From there, the duo opens up a rich sound world of subtle colours, driving energy and fresh sonic possibilities.