To our own huge surprise, the Silver Reiss Microphone went to the Concertzender on Thursday 13th June! In a packed room in the Amsterdam Ketelhuis, jury chairman Vincent Bijlo gave the relieving word.
We were already extremely honoured with the nomination. This was awarded first, with a nice introductory video that shows the extremes of the music choice on the Concertzender.
You will see images of our two live programmes: Ana Maria Sousa Castro on violin and Neil Dixon on viola during their performance at Concertzender Actueel presented by Stef Lokin. And Bob Rusche in the studio on Sunday evening for his X-Rated.
And director Sem de Jongh thanks all our volunteers who have ensured that the most beautiful music can be heard on the Concertzender for forty years. This prestigious radio award is really for all of us!
Here is the jury report: “The Concertzender, forty years against resistance: from a local station with Fine Music to a musical gold mine with 24 theme channels. Few words, a lot of music. That was the starting point of the new local Amsterdam station for serious music founded in 1982 by IJsbreker director Jan Wolff (1941-2012) and film producer and writer P. Hans Frankfurther (1932-1996).
The founders wanted to make music genres heard that were not or insufficiently covered by public broadcasting. The listener had a right to that, they thought. Initially, De Concertzender could only be heard in Amsterdam via cable. The channel will be available worldwide via the internet in 2024. The existence of the channel has hung by a thread countless times and has been financed over time by many parties, from NOS and VPRO to Veronica.
Now the studio is located in the center of Utrecht. Director Sem de Jongh has an organization with only four people on the payroll and one hundred and fifty volunteers who create wonderful programmes. From ‘Not a Day Without Bach’ to ‘The Palace of Melancholy’. And from ‘The Walk’ – in which snowed-under composers regain their place on stage – to ‘New Music’, with a concert for solo steel pan.
On the Concertzender and the theme channels we hear almost all music genres that man has ever developed, including pop, techno, experimental electronic music, folk and trance. World Of Jazz was also launched on April 30th this year. A channel on which jazz and world music can be heard 24 hours a day, with a lot of attention for new releases, young talent and live music. This in close collaboration with the Dutch Jazz and world music sector. And then there are our own concert recordings. About six thousand concerts have been recorded over the past forty years, two thousand of which are online.
We look forward to another forty musical years with the Concertzender, hand in hand with Hildegard van Bingen, Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, marimba player Tatiana Koleva and all those other creative people in all those different genres. We feel rich.”
