Tweet21-01-2011 om 21:38 by Sueli Brodin

The first time I met my future Dutch husband, he was carrying a guitar over his shoulder and when he introduced himself, he told me that he had bought it that day in Tel Aviv because he was missing playing music at the kibbutz in Israel where I had come to work as a volunteer like him.

From that moment on, I would often see him play the guitar and sing, either alone or with friends, and I was surprised at the amount of songs they knew by heart. That’s how I learned that the famous international hits “Venus” and “Suzanna” were originally Dutch songs.

I seldom joined in, because I didn’t know any of the lyrics and didn’t feel as comfortable singing out loud. During my school years in France, I enjoyed listening to (pop) music on the radio, but didn’t learn to play any music instrument, didn’t know anyone who sang in a band and never went to a pop concert. My studies kept me busy and my parents would rather not have me go places “where people would drink and smoke”.

When I came to live in the Netherlands, most of the people I met appeared to have been much more actively involved in music than me in their youth. In my husband’s family, few were those who couldn’t play a music instrument and didn’t belong to a choir or a band. When my husband and I settled down near Maastricht, one of our first landlords was Walter Nita, who told us that he used to be a singer in the 1970s and 80s in a few famous Limburg blues and rock bands (The Chaplin Band, The Walkers, the Press)  who had occasionally made it to the national charts.

Now my three children are taking piano lessons and most of their friends are also musically active. Every year at the school’s Christmas recital, I am impressed by the multitude of instruments the children can play: flute, trumpet, drums, clarinet, keyboard, guitar, violin, djembé, harmonica..



Lorraine Witteveen, Chairman Muziekgieterij Maastricht

In my work for Crossroads, I notice that music related activities are also very popular among foreign students and residents in the Maastricht region who always seem to be on the look out for music resources and events. Music is a powerful tool to bring people of different communities and backgrounds together because it transcends language and cultural barriers.

The first time I heard about the Muziekgieterij production house in Maastricht was in September 2007 through a Masters student at Maastricht University who had immediately been conquered by the initiative: “It's a fairly new organisation here in Maastricht, but they've already done quite a lot (for example, the Bruis festival on the Markt two weekends ago), and they provide a great service and outlet for musicians and students.”

With three rehearsal rooms, one concert hall, a DJ-lab and a recording studio and ongoing events on its agenda, the Muziekgieterij has now established itself as a leading centre for pop culture and music in Maastricht and I must admit that I was caught by surprise when I received an invitation to attend a brainstorm gathering to discuss its future and the importance of nurturing the pop music scene in the city. I was not aware that they were being under threat.



Panel discussion, Muziekgieterij Maastricht

In fact, I realised that evening how little I knew about the topic. Except for the architect Jo Coenen, who designed Centre Céramique which houses the European Journalism Centre, I didn’t know any of the panel members who had been invited to share their views and expertise. I hardly recognised anyone in the audience either, besides Guido Wevers, the artistic director of Maastricht’s bid for the title of European Capital of Culture in 2018 and Benoît Vanraes, from the theatre production company Huis van Bourgondië.
I had no idea for example that:

• the guest speakers of the evening were all Limburgers who had accomplished great things in the world of pop music elsewhere in the country, such as the Melkweg cultural centre in Amsterdam, or the Rock Academy and the 013 concert hall in Tilburg


• Maastricht was the only big city in the Netherlands which didn’t have a pop concert hall capable of welcoming more than the Muziekgieterij’s maximum capacity of 250 visitors


• a dynamic pop scene was perceived by many in Maastricht, including the city’s authorities, as not being in line with the city’s “sjiek en sjoen” (chic and clean/beautiful) image


• the building along the Meuse river called De Platte Zaol, after a few adjustments, would have the full potential, according to PinkPop director Jan Smeets, of becoming the next big pop concert hall in the Netherlands, with a capacity of 1000 to 1500 visitors


• many other towns in Limburg, such as Roermond, Venlo, Weert, Heerlen, Sittard-Geleen and Kerkrade, were also working on creating, expanding or merging their own pop concert halls

The Serious Beans Project

A small band called the Serious Beans Project provided for a pleasant musical intermezzo and when I happily commented to Benoît that they were performing songs in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, he asked them where they came from. That’s how we learned that they were a group of students at University College Maastricht from Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Germany. “Precisely the type of profile that Maastricht is trying to attract and retain..,” I thought.



The audience was engaged and actively contributed to the debate. As far as I could judge, there seemed to be a wide consensus in the room about the necessity for Maastricht to improve and expand its pop music resources and facilities. For a city whose ambition it is to become capital culture of Europe in 2018 and which welcomes as many as 20,000 students and a sizable international community, the return on investment would be worth the effort.

A man from Belgium, who later revealed that he was the director of the Pop and Rock Music department at the Professional University in Hasselt, said that he would set the first step by encouraging his students to perform at the Muziekgieterij in Maastricht, only 20 minutes away, instead of undertaking the much longer journeys to Louvain or Brussels.



On my way back home that evening, I thought of my own daughter Sacha who is already showing a strong interest for performing arts and the words that came to mind were: “Hurry up Maastricht, because the next generation of Serious Beans is coming!”

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