Co-curator Museum Catherijneconvent

Our co-curator for this festival edition is not a musician or an artist, but an institution. A museum, of course – noblesse oblige.

With input from the Utrecht-based Museum Catharijneconvent, we give the festival’s lectures, introductions, and talks a strong sense of direction. With its heritage specialists, the museum stands as a beacon of knowledge regarding the care of both tangible and intangible heritage. This fits perfectly within our Museumkunst-vision. Equally fascinating is the way they view their core collection – and, by extension, much of ours as an early music festival: religious art. How do we give these artistic expressions a meaningful place in a largely secularized and multicultural society, where knowledge of Christian culture is often lacking and these artworks risk becoming unreadable and inaccessible?

Museum Catharijneconvent contributes enriching insights, which are reflected in the four Early Music Museum Lectures. On weekdays, we will host the lecture series The Case of Curation in the museum’s auditorium.

And of course, you’ll also be visiting Museum Catharijneconvent: your festival ticket grants you free admission to the museum’s permanent collection and the temporary exhibition on earthly and spiritual love in art, from 29 August to 1 December.

Within the ecosystem we call visual arts, curators play a crucial role. Curators are passionate specialists who know their field inside and out, who have seen it all and travelled far and wide. In assembling exhibitions, they make the choices that determine what we, the public, actually get to see. In the world of music, things are not so different.

And the importance of curators is growing. The flood of information we are confronted with is overwhelming. In principle, all art and music are virtually available at our fingertips. How not to get lost in this abundance? Here, curators prove their value: they create depth and provide guidance. They are the sherpas of the cultural landscape.

In five conversations at Museum Catharijneconvent, we will explore the role of curators, with special focus on the world of early music. What is the impact of gatekeepers – programmers, record labels, journalists – on musicians and audiences today? Is there a counterbalance to their power? Has their role been diminished now that artificial intelligence curates our playlists and algorithms increasingly trap us in feedback loops?

From Monday 1 September to Friday 5 September, daily at 18:45 hrs in the auditorium of Museum Catharijneconvent.