Greatest Hits of All Time
4 October | 15:00
Theater Amsterdam
Ticket price for WdKA students & staff: €17.50 with code SR-VISUALS
What happens when animation meets live orchestral music on a 60-metre-wide screen? Find out on 4 October at 15:00 at Theater Amsterdam, where eight Willem de Kooning Academy animation students will see their work come to life as part of Greatest Hits of All Time by Sinfonia Rotterdam, conducted by Conrad van Alphen.
During their internship, Jens Erdtsieck, Yaniek van Haaren, Teodora Ilieva, Casper Decraene, Fabian Kerkhoven, Tsveta Anastasova, Claudiu Ghecea and Natalie van der Sluis worked together in a special WdKA Studio Setting. As a distinctive form of autonomous internship, the project gave the students the opportunity to develop their own creative approaches while working towards a professional, large-scale production.
Their challenge: create animations to accompany ten iconic musical pieces from Vivaldi and Mozart to Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd and Elton John.
The result is an immersive audiovisual concert experience in which the students' animations are projected onto the panoramic screens of Theater Amsterdam. At 60 metres wide and 20 metres high, the screen creates an impressive 180° visual experience, surrounding the audience with moving image while a live orchestra performs.
WdKA students and staff receive 50% off their tickets: just €17.50. Use discount code SR-VISUALS when booking: Book tickets with the WdKA discount
From hand-drawn animation to audio-reactive 3D
The students explored very different ways of translating music into image.
For Vivaldi's Summer, a colourful summer landscape gradually transforms into a powerful storm. The flowers alone required 267 individually hand-drawn elements, each animated separately.
In Frank Sinatra's Moon Love, the moon slowly takes over the screen as the music and emotions intensify. The 3D environment was rendered at 24 frames per second, resulting in approximately 6,120 individual images.
Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings takes the audience on a journey through a magical ballroom, combining hand-drawn 2D animation with detailed illustrated environments. Meanwhile, Kilar's Orawa is entirely hand-drawn, with around 10,000 individual drawings bringing its folkloric story to life.
For Piazzolla's Death of an Angel, the students experimented with complex 3D simulations and audio-reactive elements, translating different frequencies in the music into movement, colour and scale.
Together, these works demonstrate the diversity of animation practices at WdKA: traditional drawing and storytelling, 3D, simulation and generative, music-responsive techniques.
Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings
Vivaldi - Summer
Frank Sinatra - Moon Love
Piazolla - Death of an Angel
Killar - Orawa
