Young Dutch jazz star to kick off 1997 at Erasmus Huis
By Carla Bianpoen
JAKARTA (JP): Erasmus Huis, the Dutch Cultural Center, will be kicking off its activities in the new year with a big bang. Masha Bijlsma, the rising jazz star from eastern Holland, will be onstage Monday evening.
Praised by the Dutch and German media as "the new generation highly talented jazz singer" Bijlsma seems to stand out among the many young jazz singers emerging in Holland after Denise Jannah and Astrid Seriese earned international acclaim.
Although Bijlsma is a slender young woman in her early 20s, her voice is surprisingly mature, "like that of a big fat experienced mamma", according to one media critic. Strong and dark, with a marked soul and blues character, her voice is both expressive and impressive. The press has also hailed her first CD, Winds of Change, as a highly promising debut.
Bijlsma's aspirations in the world of jazz began after she responded to her high school teacher's request to sing a song. She enrolled at the Rotterdam Music School for Song and found her destiny -- singing jazz. However, she did not immediately pursue a career as a jazz singer. Instead, she began working as an E- bassist, in addition to playing in a Rotterdam soul-rock band.
In 1993, she established the Masha Bijlsma Band. With her father, Dries Bijlsma, at the drums and mother Bijlsma as manager, the band is further supported by Gre Bijvoet at the piano and bassist Eric van der Westen.
Bijlsma's usual repertoire is in the line of such big vocalists as Abbey Lincoln, Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald and Monk. But gradually, she and her band members have introduced their own versions and innovations. If the praise from the German press is anything to go by, then something special is in the offing.
Performances will be only in Jakarta: Monday for the general public (free entry) and Tuesday for invitees.
Coinciding with an official visit of the Dutch minister of education and culture, Tuesday's performance will be preceded by the opening of a painting exhibition featuring paintings of Eugene Brands, now 84 years old. About 30 artworks illustrate the life history of this artist. Once adhering to the COBRA experimental group, of which Karel Appel used to be a member, he went his own way in 1951, convinced that progress and development of artworks should be the result of how each individual artist addresses change based on personal evolution, not of the group's.
After his COBRA period, Brands immersed himself in the world of childhood fantasy. Drawing his inspiration from children's fairy tales, the works of this period are enticing, with surrealistic touches. But the most exciting are the works following this fairy tale period. Impressive color expressions lead the spectator to an unusual imagery, his sources of inspiration being the phenomenons of the universe and the world philosophies, which believe that eternal movement makes everything subject to change.
The exhibition runs until Feb. 14.