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Hello! [Partly the description in the program booklet and youtube video] Maarten Bauer – Melodrama No.1 ''The End of His Story Started Here,'' Op. 45. 11th of August 2017 Dedicated to all the victims in concentration camps during World War II. The music begins at circa 2:00 On the 18th of November 2017 (one of the) most prestigious composition competition(s) in the Benelux took place: Prinses Christina Compositie Concours. I submitted my Melodrama No.1 ‘’The End of His Story Started Here’’ and to my surprise I won the first price of competition! I cannot express my gratitude for the judges, the performers (Trio Burlesco+) and the audience! Furthermore I would like to thank the other participating composers for the amazing experience and relaxed atmosphere during the stressful day. Description This melodrama uses the poem, which I have written in 2014 (see the text below), based on John Boyne’s astonishing book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This composition is composed for the Trio Burlesco and a soprano and a percussionist (Trio Burlesco+). The text and music strengthen each other, so none of the two can be omitted. The innocent soprano is both narrator and singer and she symbolizes the actions, the emotions and the thoughts of the main character in the poem: Shmuel. Shmuel is a Jewish boy, who has just arrived in Auschwitz, which is called Out-With by Boyne. He does not know where he is and he cannot find his family, consisting of his father, mother and his big sister, whom I called Anat, which means ‘singing.’ The motivation for me to write such a heavily-weighted piece, namely an innocent young boy who will probably die in a Nazi concentration camp, is because I noticed that people in my surrounding realize less and less that freedom and peace are not obvious. It is the greatest gift that we can live in freedom and peace in the Netherlands. I noticed that this important consciousness gradually drains away by the years. Therefore I wanted to compose a piece, which remembers us that we have to be grateful for the lives we now live and that the indescribable terrible crimes may never be repeated. When I wrote the poem, my tears flowed. When I composed the Melodrama, my tears flowed. And now again, my tears flow, because this may never happen again. Never. https://christinaconcours.nl/alles/9667/