Composer Laureate of the Netherlands in 2019, 2020 and 2021

Calliope Tsoupaki was Composer Laureate of the Netherlands (Componist der Nederlanden) from 2019 through 2021, serving for one year longer than the standard two-year term because the COVID-19 pandemic called for an extension. During these three years, she was an ambassador for new music in the Netherlands. She saw her most important task as making the craft of composition more visible to a wider audience

“We do not work in isolation in some back room. We are people of flesh and blood. We practise a craft that has existed for centuries and will continue to exist.”

As an ambassador, she engaged in conversations with fellow composers, musicians, programmers, concertgoers, politicians, and radio and television producers. During her three years as Composer Laureate, Calliope Tsoupaki translated many topical social issues directly into music. In her view, music can shed a different light on current events.

“Music says something about being human that cannot be said in any other way. It opens a gateway to a world you did not know existed. That is what I want to convey as Composer Laureate, with the same sense of service as a construction worker or a street cleaner.”

For Human Rights Day on 10 December 2018, Tsoupaki composed the solo work Song for Life and Death for pan flute. During the Rembrandt Year in 2019, she paid musical tribute to the painter with Stilleven for solo theorbo. Another particularly striking composition was Pour Notre Dame for solo organ. After part of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames on 15 April 2019, she composed this homage to the cathedral. Just five days after the fire, Jan Hage gave the premiere at Utrecht Cathedral. Several organists subsequently performed the piece in organ concerts throughout the Netherlands.

When the coronavirus pandemic struck the Netherlands, Calliope Tsoupaki offered a message of encouragement with her piano piece Inner Life in March 2020.

“Just as a lotus flower blooms in murky water, I wish that our inner life will continue to flourish in these difficult and uncertain times.”

During the pandemic, she also composed the piano piece Meeting Point, a work that reflects on connection and closeness at a time when physical contact and distance had suddenly become such a central part of everyday life. As Tsoupaki herself put it:

“After all, there is no distance between us when it comes to music, when it comes to love.”

To give her message an added dimension, she created a video clip to accompany the new work (available on YouTube).

One of the most significant works of this period was Thin Air, composed in 2020 for Festivals for Compassion, an initiative of Wonderfeel in collaboration with the Flag of Compassion. Written at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the piece was conceived as an expression of solidarity and compassion. Its unusual concept allows it to be performed by musicians on a wide range of instruments, making the work itself a symbol of inclusivity and shared humanity. The first performances took place on 20 June 2020, when three musicians presented their own versions on NPO Radio 4, after which the piece travelled from festival to festival across Europe, like a relay race of compassion. Thin Air was performed more than 50 times by musicians around the world and later also took the form of versions for orchestra and string orchestra. In 2021, Tsoupaki received the prestigious Matthijs Vermeulen Composition Prize for the work.