Donemus, Gaudeamus and GeNeCo recently announced the birth of NEAR, a new facility to support the stepchild in the family of Dutch music.

Electronic music seems to be a problem for music publishers.

Providing a tape for a performance is not in itself so difficult, but how do you preserve such tapes? What do you do if the musician asks for an `8 track ADAT'? What do you do when somebody comes back with an old 2 inch tape and tells you that there are dropouts in it? And what happens when a well-known work is requested which you, as publisher, appear not even to have in stock?

Such problems afflict not only Donemus, but also concert planners like Gaudeamus and the many musicians who want to incorporate electronic works into their repertoire. It is clear that electro-acoustic music, as a fully fledged part of contemporary music, requires quite a different approach from notated instrumental music. NEAR has been developed out of the need felt by composers (GeNeCo), publishers (Donemus) and planners (Gaudeamus) to integrate electro-acoustic music into contemporary music practice in a structured and professional manner.

It is surprising that the history of Dutch electronic music has not yet been written, given the prominent place occupied by the Netherlands during the early flowering of electronic music worldwide (most notably via the Institute of Sonology, then based at Utrecht). Soon after the first electronic studios had appeared in Paris, Cologne and New York, Werner Meyer-Eppler and Herbert Eimert were already giving lectures in Bilthoven, The Hague and Hilversum. Technicians from Philips were involved in the first electronic compositions produced by Henk Badings (for the ballet Cain and Abel). In 1957, at the instigation of Walter Maas, the first studio was set up at the Philips physics laboratory in Eindhoven (the so-called Nat-lab).

After Henk Badings' somewhat traditionally conceived work, the first really interesting impulses came from the Nat-lab technicians, notably from Dick Raaijmakers and Tom Dissevelt. An extra stimulus was provided by the visit of Edgar Varèse, who used Philips to realize his Poème électronique in 1957. The Netherlands had taken its place in the international world of musical innovation. In 1960 the main body of the Nat-lab studio moved to the University of Utrecht. Philips withdrew. The Institute of Sonology was born. But what turned `Sonology' into an internationally renowned institute was the arrival of the German composer Gottfried Michael Koenig, who had worked with Stockhausen at the WDR. Koenig, in his modest way, brought serialism with him, and every self-respecting young composer at the time wanted to makes its acquaintance. Besides Koenig, the international staff of Sonology was made up of the Swiss Werner Kaegi, the American Paul Berg and Frits Weiland from the Netherlands.

In the course of its existence Sonology has welcomed a long series of students and guest composers who more often than not were en route to becoming leading composers of electronic music (men such as Barry Truax, Takayuki Rai, Otto Laske, Claude Vivier and Robert Rowe). There were also Dutch guests, such as Karel Appel, Louis Andriessen and Tera de Marez Oyens. In 1983 the institute moved again, this time to the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, where for several years it was led by Clarence Barlow.

Meanwhile, other studios were appearing. There was already one in place at The Hague (under Dick Raaijmakers) before Sonology arrived, plus one at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam (set up by Ton de Leeuw in 1980), one at the University of Amsterdam (also set up by Ton de Leeuw, but soon taken over by Leigh Landy) and the CEM studio under the direction of Michael Fahres (originally set up under Gaudeamus in Bilthoven, then based for a long time in Arnhem and recently rehoused in Amsterdam). Some of these have since closed or been threatened with closure, partly due to a lack of infrastructure and a reluctance to invest in a new genre.

The second major studio besides Sonology is STEIM, set up by a group which included Misha Mengelberg, Peter Schat and Louis Andriessen, later (and still) led by Michel Waisvisz, STEIM has presented itself as a workshop for live electronics, a genre which integrates the music with the theatrical aspect of electronics on the concert platform. Like Sonology, STEIM has built up an international reputation and regularly receives guests from abroad.

In the electronic music field the Netherlands presents two faces to the world. On the one hand it is primarily a host country, a place where many foreign composers can find an inspiring but temporary place to work. On the other hand, it is home to other composers who play important roles on the international electronic stage (such as Michel Waisvisz, Ton Bruynèl, Jan Boerman, Dick Raaijmakers, Tera de Marez Oyens, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Paul Berg and Clarence Barlow). Young composers, such as Kees Tazelaar and René Uijlenhoet, can now be added to that list. However, compared with France, England and Canada, the infrastructure for electronic music is poor. There is no national instrument pool, no specialized venue and virtually no series of concerts specifically for electronic music (an exception is the series run by De IJsbreker in the Artis Planetarium). No competition is held and, unlike these other countries, almost no aesthetic profile has been developed. There is no organisation which can supply a loudspeaker orchestra (such as BEAST in Birmingham or the Acousmonium in Paris) and no link established with ordinary education (unlike in England where electronic composition is a popular subject in the primary schools).

In short, there is still much to be done if the situation of electronic music in the Netherlands is to improve. One key factor is in place, however; the presence of interesting composers. The next step is an integrated policy towards instruments, concerts and education, and the consolidation of what has already been achieved: this means preserving the legacy of compositions which were important in their own time, but are now awaiting a sequel.

In 1994, in response to these considerations, I launched plans for NAEM (Netherlands Archive of Electronic Music) with four objectives in mind: (1) the collection (2) the making available (3) and the promotion of Dutch electronic music, plus (4)) the encouragement of new compositions. The plan was based on various ideas which I had absorbed during my work as technical director of the Electronic Music Studio at the Sweelinck Conservatory. I saw whole pieces getting lost through erosion or through the disappearance of old tape recorders and I found electronic music being treated like a stepchild in the family of Dutch music as a whole. The root of the problem lay in the lack of an adequate infrastructure. Musicians could simply not get hold of the tapes because nobody knew where to find them, and if they could be found either the quality was lamentable or there was no proper equipment available upon which to play them.

The NAEM plan seemed to strike a chord with wishes already expressed at GeNeCo and Donemus. In November 1995 Donemus `adopted' the plan and rechristened it NEAR, shifting the accent slightly from `archive' to `repertoire'. In so doing they have placed the emphasis on collecting pieces with the potential to play a role in musical life (repertoire) rather than on collecting all possible compositions, some of which would have only a historical significance (archive).

NEAR is now in its starting phase and is run by the composer René Uijlenhoet. Donemus has put an office at its disposal and the plan is to make an initial evaluation in November 1996. NEAR's first priority is to establish contacts with composers and studios, and to tap the most important sources. An estimate suggests that around 250 hours of Dutch electronic music must already exist. NEAR will first try to chart the sources of this repertoire and then ask: Which pieces are to be found where? How much music is involved? Are there pieces which must be copied quickly before they are lost? There will be close cooperation with the Institute of Sonology, which has about two thirds of the estimated 250 hours of music in its archive.

In consultation with Donemus, NEAR will also be investigating, how best to preserve tape compositions, and how to organize the legal and practical basis of relationships between composer, NEAR and Donemus. The composer who presents a tape to NEAR can now indicate if he wishes merely to have it documented, or if he is willing for it to be used for performance and possible reproduction. NEAR is primarily concerned with the preservation and making available of tapes, while Donemus' contribution will take the form of promotion and active backing for specific compositions.

A first piece of promotion has already taken place: a CD featuring the work of Tom Bruynèl, released under the CD-NEAR label. NEAR's plans for this label include a series of CD's featuring works by Jan Boerman and Dick Raaijmakers and further plans include the organization of concerts in conjunction with CD's, with programmes selected by a guest composer.

In order to improve the conditions for performing electronic music, NEAR and Gaudeamus are jointly involved in purchasing sound equipment which can be installed in different locations. This travelling set will consist of loudspeakers, a mixer and reproduction equipment (DAT recorder, 16 track ADAT recorder and CD player).

NEAR must develop into a national centre to which composers can submit their electronic compositions, where musicians can select electronic works to play, where musicologists can come to hear and analyze old tapes and where international publishers can learn how Donemus is dealing with advanced electronics. In addition NEAR will become a listening museum, where visitors can listen to Raaijmakers' first electronic experiments, where old tape recorders can be found coupled to old mixers, where people can listen to an original BASF tape on a 24 track Studer, and where you can sit behind the knobs of an analogue Roland synthesizer to experience the primitive sounds of the earliest electronic instruments.

NEAR will also play an active role in the development of contemporary music and be a studio where composers can realize their compositions and where school and college students can become acquainted with the newest music technology. It will serve as an advice centre for music teachers, organize courses for both adults and children and be a meeting place where the annual International NEAReamus Competition for electronic compositions will take place. NEAR will not restrict itself solely to tapes, but will also pay attention to electronic instruments, to video and sound recordings of live electronic concerts and to music which only exists in the form of computer programmes: in short, to all the electro-acoustic aspects of musical practice in the future.

NEAR's raisons d'être are not only historically based, nor do they depend on the simple fact that there are composers who make electronic pieces. They also reflect the increasingly important role being played by electronic means in music making today. Quite apart from electronic music as a genre, electronic techniques are now used to record instrumental music and computers are essential both to music publishers and to composers who write their music using computer programmes. Music is now being exchanged via the worldwide Internet, and even specially composed for it. Yet the most important thing is this: that however digital and electronic such music may be, it must finally be realized acoustically. The Netherlands Electro-Acoustic Repertoire Centre is, you might say, the Dutch intermediary between electronics and acoustics.

© Alcedo Coenen, Amsterdam