In De Bètacanon, the fifty scientific topics from de Volkskrant’s eponymous project are sung in a musical canon in four voices, interwoven with love songs for DNA, enzymes, prime numbers and entropy. The result is a canon as a love song to science.

Vocal quartet Quatre Bouches: Sabine Wüthrich (soprano), Petra Ehrismann (alto), Michel Poels (bariton) and Job Boswinkel (bass). Featuring Govert Valkenburg and Bas Ponsioen (tenor), Gerben Uilenbroek and Ruben Naeff (piano), conducted by Wouter Padberg. Guests appearance by Frits van Oostrom. Recording by Frerik de Jong, Kleinman Audio.

Fill the Present Day with Joy

MUSIC11 MUSICIANS

Inspired by the ever-increasing personalization of our online world, the piece Fill the Present Day with Joy is a song about you. With lyrics taken from Facebook status updates, reaching from a quotation of Wordsworth, via loving wall posts, to automatically generated texts by Facebook itself, the piece expresses the love we share online.

I wanted to write a piece of music that reflected our online community. I discovered one category of posts on Facebook that was very powerful: those tiny messages about love. Perhaps it's because I am living abroad and I see most of my friends and family exclusively online, or perhaps it’s because those small and unpretentious messages sound so genuine. It's about the genuine love for small things, the things that make life worth living.

Live recording by Jessica Aszodi (soprano), Matt Albert (viola), Thomas Kotcheff and Charlie Magnone (piano).

Download sheet music free of charge.