Foundation IHOS Amsterdam was registered on the 31st of December 2019 in Amsterdam.
The Board of the Foundation comprised the following members as of the 31st of December 2022.
Rukshana Edwards – Chair
Joost Ramaer – Secretary
Winesh Nohar – Treasurer
Bérénice Boutin – Member
Claudio de los Rios – Member
The Foundation has at the core of its mission the production of music, film, theatre and other artistic productions (see Aims and Objectives). For their realisation, the Foundation cooperates with private public and not for profit organisations. The Foundation even engages collaborators from more remote domains, like architecture, medicine and science. To support and expand this creative network, the Foundation will also publish texts, video and audio materials, and organise creative workshops for emerging singers, writers and film makers.
The Foundation will not be run for a profit. Possible positive balances in any year will be re-invested in new projects. Upon its liquidation, the foundation will transfer any remaining capital to another ‘Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling’ with a comparable mission.
Policy of non-remuneration for members of the board.
According to article 3 paragraph 4 of the Statutes of Foundation IHOS Amsterdam, the members of the board will not be remunerated for their work, only reimbursed for possible expenses.
Public Benefit Organization (ANBI).
On the 28th of April 2020, Foundation IHOS Amsterdam was registered in the Netherlands to receive tax deductible donations.
The Foundation helps to launch and supports the artistic projects of Konstantin Koukias and his many creative partners. To accomplish this goal, the board actively searches for funds, subsidies, sponsors and donors who would like to contribute to the foundation’s mission and to its projects.
The Foundation has no capital of its own and has no ambition to build it. All the foundation’s revenues will be re-invested in new projects fitting its mission. Per project will set up a project budget, of which a small part will be reserved for management costs, like the costs of its bank account and of the building and hosting of its website, www.ihosamsterdam.com. Apart from that the foundation has no additional costs. The board members will not be remunerated for their work, only reimbursed for possible expenses.
THE PAIN OF OTHERS
A short film by Slavisa Drobnjakovic
Based on a true story
In a time and place where therapists, life coaches and spiritual advisers are not commonly found, Mira devotes her time to those in need. Her apartment becomes a revolving door for many distraught and hopeless visitors. But one unexpected guest, a survivor of the Holocaust, is about to challenge her life.
Pavle Minh recalls the day when he and a group of gypsy musicians were arrested and incarcerated by the Nazis. The Germans smashed all of their instruments, and burnt them in a bonfire. Decades later, Pavle is still haunted by the memory of the gypsy musicians performing Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in the concentration camp.
A DEEP BLACK SLEEP
A film-noir opera for tenor, chamber ensemble, and 10 masked characters that blurs the boundaries between cinematic and live performance.
Libretto by Alan Mauritz Swanson, Music by Vera van der Bie and Tyrone Landau
Film sequences by Slavisa Drobnjaković
This work is currently in development for presentation in 2023 & 2024.
EROS AND THANATOS
Scenario & Direction: Slavisa Drobnjakovic
In Pre Production
Eros & Thanatos is a love story based in an asylum centre, a particular kind of limbo realm where the temporal dimension of past and present intertwine and gradually disappear, reducing the individual to nothing but their life force. A grotesque exemplar, a trivialization of the Freudian concept of Eros & Thanatos.
The story follows a young couple arriving at an Asylum centre. Naively convinced that this is going to be just a short episode before the promised life in Europe, the images of the agonized people around them seem to easily pass them by. Days transform into months and months to years. They’ll try to run away before they lose their minds.
SHAPED BY TREES
A film opera in pre-production
In Pre Production
Direction – Constantine Koukias, Biasino William Pezzimenti
Conductor – Warwick Stengårds Librettist – Biasino William Pezzimenti Composer – Constantine Koukias, Director of Photography – Sandi Sissel Production Designers – Peta Heffernan & Elvio Brianese Casting – Isobel Ferrier Sound – Greg Gurr & David Fraser Projection Design – Mik Lavage Lighting – Jason James Costume & Wardrobe – Elizabeth Monaghan Hair & Make Up Design – Vanda Leigh Electronic Tape Engineers – Donald Bate
PRIMORDIAL for Piano and Diverse Media
A journey through time, to the first signs of animal life on Earth
Music: Constantine Koukias
Piano: Gabriella Smart
Original Sound Design Tape: Mischa Duncan Te Pas
Flinders Ranges Recording (South Australia, 2021): Daniel Pitman
Live Sound Design: Greg Gurr
Live Sound Recording: Donald Bate
Lighting Design: Jason James
Commissioned by the Hon. Christopher Schacht & SOUNDSTREAM New Music
PRIMORDIAL merges science and sound to create a journey through time, to the first signs of animal life on earth: the Ediacara fossils. A visceral listening experience, it re-enacts the shifting of tectonic plates which formed the inland sea in Flinders Ranges, South Australia, where these organisms first evolved almost 600 million years ago.
Composer Constantine Koukias translates this seismic movement into manipulated piano preparations and electronics. Reinventing the sound of the traditional piano, he conjures a haunting and fragile sonic landscape that reflects an archaic continent.
AFTER THAT IT HAPPENED
By Nancy Black and Constantine Koukias
Research Stage
After That It Happened follows four people who live in disparate parts of the globe in different eras, and never meet. Their choices and actions, however, are profoundly inter-connected, however, as each grapples with a life-changing decision. We propose a universe where past, present and future occupy the same moment, and individual actions resonate across space.
This new opera is a collaboration with the Melbourne based company Black Hole Theatre.
Funding support has been provided by the Australia Council for the Arts for the part commissioning of the musical score. A showing of excerpt is planned for 2022 in Amsterdam and Australia.
Creative Team:
Direction & Libretto – Nancy Black
Music – Constantine Koukias
Scenography – Slavisa Drobnjaković & Constantine Koukias
Projection & Sound Design – Mik Lavage
Animated Object Design – Hamish Fletcher
Netherlands & US Cast:
Inez Timmer – Voice (role of Michelle)
Judith Weusten – Soprano (role of Robyn)
Ben Le Clair – Bass (role of Theodore)
Ilija Surla – Actor (role of Sergei)
CAPRICORN
A sonic memoire in the life of Gian Garlo Menotti & Samuel Barber
by Slavisa Drobnjaković & Constantine Koukias
Research Stage
To date no one has given an operatic voice to the profound personal and professional relationship of Gian-Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber, two of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century.
This piece is a fictional memoire envisioned through the lenses of Gian Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber, from the first day of moving into their home in 1943 until the sale of their house in 1973. A journey over three decades under the roof of their house, which they called “Capricorn.”