One painting, one performer, one great song. With View the Mauritshuis with Your Ears, we ask well-known performers to draw inspiration from artworks in our collection. After singer Willie Wartaal, it’s now the turn of a band: The Kik.
Listen below to their new track Ware Jakob, which The Kik were inspired to write by the Mauritshuis collection!
The Kik's choice
In the fifth instalment of View the Mauritshuis with Your Eyes, it was the turn of an entire band to write a song: The Kik. Geert-Jan Borgstein from the Mauritshuis showed lead singer Dave von Raven around the museum. Quite the early bird, the chirpy Rotterdammer visited the Mauritshuis early one morning. When asked if there was a particular kind of painting he liked, he didn’t hesitate: ‘I think I tend towards the sociable sort’. So would Dave choose a jovial scene, or would something else catch his eye? Ultimately it was a romantic diptych that inspired him: he chose the portraits of Jakob Ompalius and Elisabeth Bellinghausen!
About The Kik
The Kik is a Dutch beat band. After the break-up of another Dutch beat band The Madd, Dave von Raven founded ‘The Kik’. With great success. The band consists of five musicians: lead singer and guitarist Dave von Raven, bass player Marcel Groenewegen, guitarist and singer Arjan Spies, drummer Ries Doms and keyboard player and singer Paul Zoontjes. Their music is inspired by 1960s’ artists such as The Beatles and Dutch singer-songwriter Boudewijn de Groot. The band’s instruments also hark back to that time: VOX amplifiers, Ludwig drums and Rickenbacker guitars. The band’s early singles had English lyrics, but they quickly switched to Dutch. In May 2012, the band surprised the press and fans by releasing their Dutch-language debut album Springlevend. It was a huge hit.
Made possible by
View the Mauritshuis with Your Ears is made possible by NN Group.
