Mission
I have heard, seen and felt how people who, throughout their lives in a deep bow to the tradition that produced them, time and time again got the best out of themselves to move full concert halls. The complex language of the great composers was spoken from person to person in order to write forever and compellingly in the mind and heart of the audience and never be forgotten again.
Three decades ago I started to turn away slowly because that language seemed to become more and more a dead language, was still spoken, but was no longer understood and experienced. I noticed new generations grinding and excel at the grammer and the words but the poetry disappeared. And the deep bow became a friendly nod with a smile towards the audience and the composers they perform.
Slowly I came to understand that not the ideas about classical music, but the ideas about being successful in the world of classical music changed everything that was dear to me. In the new success, deepening and respect had given way to the struggle for visibility and commercial results, being striking and improper virtuoso.
I couldn't blame musicians for adhering to this success and all the facilities that had been rolled out for this in the meantime. I did discover, however, that more and more people around me mentioned the experience that missed and yearned for the emotion of the past and at the same time did not know what it is that makes them unaffected. That's how I knew something had to happen.
I believe that there is a lot of talent, that there are very good teachers and that there is an audience that really wants to be enchanted. After all, I believe that there are people who see the importance of that spell and want to make a generous contribution to it. And that is why in this writing I am designing the plan to make the old success in the new age possible again and see it as a great opportunity to link the honest method of performance practice of yesteryear to the many talent that there is today.
I strongly believe that a new generation of classical musicians will emerge who, with all the support it certainly will need during this process, will again make the effort and humility to create musical poetry that touches people again. A generation that commits itself to bowing deeply to tradition and not slide into superficial and external success.
I also imagine that there is an audience that will embrace this generation of musicians by being there and being enchanted instead of being distracted.
Finally, I am convinced that there are people who want to donate to be addressed. I thank them for their trust and generosity of being part in this important movement to change things for the better, I want to thank them also for their investments in true artists being our guardian angels over our cultural inheritance and it's future existance.
The mission is to connect young musicians who possess the talent and the motivation to do this fundamentally to the experience of classical music that I, like many with me, have inherited from my youth. To that end, I want to make sure that they have enough time and opportunity to develop on a musical and personal level with this in mind.
With the help of the foundation I want to design and control that development carefully and tailored to the musician in question, while being able to use the necessary facilities. I ask those musicians to commit to the objectives, and with that to the success, that we define for and with them with in mind the wellbeing of a worldwide listening audience benefitting the magic of music brought to them by these wonderful and honest artists.
Jochem Geene
Jochem Geene, Founder/Director