After three moving months, I finally have our Stabat Mater ready. The emotion cannot be described, it is something you feel, not what you say. …I’m happy, proud, but also speechless when this ‘baby’ will crawl for the first time…

On the occasion of the world premiere of this baby in the Netherlands, countertenor Sytse Buwalda quoted composer Victor Kioulaphides, proud of having completed his Stabat Mater.
On October 31, 2021, we listened with fascination in the beautiful Grote Kerk in Breda to this work by this for us unknown composer, born in 1961 in Athens, now working in New York.

The concert, a Suite of Sorrows, in commemoration of the deceased, was performed by the Netherlands Bach Consort. Soloists were Sytse Buwalda and Heleen Koele.
Besides Kioulaphides’ Stabat Mater, we heard two tranquil, poignantly performed compositions by Arvo Pärt: Vater Unser and Es sang vor langen Jahren. Finally Tilge, Höchter (psalm 51) an arrangement by Bach of the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi.

Buwalda asked Kioulaphides to compose a Stabat Mater. Interviewed in the Dutch magazine De Stentor, September 2016, Buwalda says: ‘Victor composed it as a suite: a series of dance forms in the same key, with variations on the same harmonies. It’s tonal, accessible music. Victor is also extremely productive. Like Mozart, he writes down his music in almost one flowing movement, without changing much. As with Mozart, Kiouphalides’ compositions often sound simpler than they are. It’s wonderful when a composer knows exactly how your voice sounds and spreads a musical bed for you’.
Unfortunately we don’t have a recording of the concert. Maybe there will be one in the future! Anyway we will add Victor Kioulaphides to the webpage MISSING CDS.