Atlas Ensemble in Residence

After winning the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2019, Dutch composer Joël Bons will take the Atlas Ensemble into a whole new phase in the coming years. In collaboration with Oranjewoud Festival , the multi-ethnic ensemble will be further developed into an Atlas Orchestra over a three-year period. The goal is to explore the musical universe that opens up in the process and to explore the sound spectrum.

After years of traveling around the world with Nieuw Ensemble, Joël Bons founded the Atlas Ensemble in 2002, which operated on a project basis under the wings of Nieuw Ensemble. The distinctive feature of the new collective is the bringing together of instruments from various (playing) cultures, mostly of Asian origin, and instruments traditionally used in the West and applied playing methods. This paves the way for writing unique compositions with the provisional highlight being the Nomaden for eighteen musicians and solo cellist composed by Bons in 2016. Three years later, the American University of Louisville decided to award Bons the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for this, which is widely considered the Nobel Prize for music composition.

Joël Bons: "I experience today's multicultural society as very fascinating and colorful. So it is also in music: bringing together musicians and instruments from different cultures and musical practices offers great richness and unprecedented possibilities. Combining things that have never been combined before is what drives me. And we have a sophisticated cast of top players from China, India, Azerbaijan, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe.'

After the New Ensemble ceased its activities at the end of 2019, the organizational basis of the Atlas Ensemble also fell away. Oranjewoud Festival now assumes the role of producer and principal of the multi-year program. Artistic director Yoram Ish-Hurwitz: 'Oranjewoud Festival sees innovation and tradition as two sides of the same coin. Giving new composition commissions that make connections between genres, disciplines and cultures is one of the spearheads of our policy. Not only does Atlas satisfy our musical curiosity, it is also socially relevant. From different cultural backgrounds jointly creating something entirely new and feeling connected to it, is what living together is actually about.'

The newly launched project has three phases. In the first, to be expressed at the end of this month, Bons concentrates on string instruments with a series of new compositions: Rug for Yuji, Atlas Strings, Rug for Elshan and a seven-movement Suite of short contrasting pieces. These will premiere May 29 after a week-long residency at the festival. Four presentation concerts will also take place at Museum Belvédère by individual Atlas musicians and Bons will be a guest at De Salon on May 29. In it, he will engage in conversation with radio producer Pieter van der Wielen.

In 2024, wind instruments and percussion are the subject. 2025 is the year when everything comes together and an orchestra is formed with 30-50 instrumentalists. The next few years will involve collaboration with musicians and students from various international ensembles and conservatories.