Every Thursday there's music at the very top right corner of this very ugly building.

That's 8½'s playing Twentieth-Century Classical Music known as entartete Musik (no U-Musik, catchy, though).

Some of them sing. Some sing high, some sing lower. One of the singers is also their reciter. The others play flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, trumpet, horn, violin, guitar and piano.

They have fun.

They are

Hanne van de Vrie (soprano, arrangements)
Marije Martijn (mezzosoprano, reciter & vocals)
Kai Eigner (tenor, clarinet & bass clarinet, arrangements)
Marijn Schraagen (alto & baritone saxophone)
Tony Tol (horn)
Frits Schipper (violin)
Arianna Betti (arrangements, conducting from the piano)

Jacco Verburgt (flute), Annika Weijers (flute), Gerard van Rooij (oboe & English horn) and Ietje Vleeshouwers (trumpets) play with us somtimes.

And Sabina Leonelli (soprano), Mariëtte Willemsen (alto),  Tirza Brüggemann (oboe & English horn), Gert Bos (alto saxophone), Job Zinkstok (guitar) have also played with 8½. You can hear them on Lieber heute als morgen. And perhaps you'll hear them again, who knows.

Thanks to: Pam Rossel, for precious help with the Russian text of the Shostakovich pieces; Anniek van der Schuijt, Jeltje Nauta, Martine Caspers and Sandra Vollaard for their patience with countless requests to use our rehearsing room, the Kerkzaal; the Board of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for financing major upkeep of the grand piano in the Kerkzaal

8½ lives in the Netherlands. 

Cheers!