Tickets

Salut Salon’s performance is all about the phenomenon that has inspired composers down through the ages: love. For the German musicians who make up this all-woman cabaret-like quartet, love is what it's all about - and so is their music. They touch on every aspect of the world’s most universal language and intersperse their musical interpretations with a healthy dose of humour.

While they lovingly step beyond the traditions of classical music with their own arrangements and chansons about the deeper meaning of love, their renditions of works by Prokofiev, Piazzolla, Bach, Vivaldi and Rachmaninov are just as playful. They ask questions like ‘How deeply can one love without coming up for air?’, give possible answers (based on Erich Fried's famous poem) to ‘It is what it is..", get melancholy with ‘I love you too much’, sing an old Jewish tango that Salut Salon in Plattdeutsch, and bring their own versions of the most famous songs in pop history, from Marilyn Monroe to Herbert Grönemeyer, to the stage.

Warning: if you don’t give a hoot about love and think that classical music is only a serious business: don’t attend this concert ;-)

› More info about LOVE (Opening concert)

After previous performances given at the Oranjewoud Festival, the return of cellist Quirine Viersen and pianist Enrico Pace will be a happy reunion for our loyal festival audience. They will present a programme as varied as it is fascinating for the opening of the new location at the Orangerie on the Oranjestein Estate.

With the beautiful garden as a backdrop, you can enjoy Martinů’s Variations on a Slovakian Theme. A sense of restlessness combines with the light-heartedness reminiscent of his native country and its bittersweet melodies. The Brahms Cello Sonata in F is a work composed by an older man who has lost nothing of his youthful passion. Fauré also wrote his second cello sonata late in life. Vincent d’Indy, the French composer and theoretician, was enraptured by its performance and confided to Fauré: ‘The second section is a masterpiece in sensitivity and expression, the finale exciting and upbeat...What a joy that you are still so young!’

› More info about Young at Heart

This internationally renowned piano trio will perform a programme recalling one of the most famous platonic relationships of the nineteenth century: the one between Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann. As the wife of Robert Schumann, pianist Clara became acquainted with the composer Brahms as a great devotee and admirer of her playing and Robert’s music. The fact that her own compositions were taken less seriously was not so strange in the unemancipated world of that time. Nevertheless, her trio for piano was a highlight of her oeuvre; remarkably enough, Clara described it as feminine and sentimental, yet it was actually lyrical, refined and refreshing. On the other hand, Brahms’ much more familiar trio for piano, is highly expressive and turbulent. Was this a presentiment of the dramatic events that would soon play out by the Schumanns (a suicide attempt by Robert) or was it pure musical considerations that inspired Brahms? We can only guess.

› More info about Eternal Love

In juni 2017 gingen de leden van het jonge, Belgische St. George Quintet op een train trip door de Tsjechische Republiek. Zij wilden namelijk zo veel mogelijk mensen spreken om alles te weten te komen over hun cultureel erfgoed én (puur voor de lol) meereizen met de Dvořák Express. Dat is de trein die Praag verbindt met Brno, de steden van respectievelijk Dvořák en Janáček. Beide wensen vielen mooi samen. Een treinreis is namelijk de perfecte plaats om met mensen in gesprek te raken…

Zij kletsten wat af, bezochten de huizen van de twee componisten, dansten, zongen en dronken tijdens een folkloristisch festival (verrukkelijke!) Moravische wijn, allemaal om zo veel mogelijk inspiratie op te doen voor dit programma.
 

› More info about Bohemia Express

Inspired by Toots Thielemans, Hermine Deurloo turns the chromatic harmonica into a real jazz instrument. Over the years, she has performed with the Metropole Orkest, the Willem Breuker Kollektief, Jesse van Ruller, Candy Dulfer, Han Bennink and musicians in the downtown New York jazz scene like Tony Scherr. As far back as 2013, she started giving many concerts with jazz pianist Rembrandt Frerichs, a musician active in the forefront of the latest generation of Europe’s improvising instrumentalists. The international press sees him as an adventurer on the piano and a master of his instrument.

In A long story short, Hermine’s soft, lyrical and fluid playing of the harmonica joins the energy of improvised jazz performed by the Rembrandt Frerichs Quartet. The result is a mix of exciting improvisations, powerful melodies and compositions they wrote themselves.

› More info about A Long Story Short

The Youth Percussion Pool & Tatiana Koleva are up to a new adventure: engaging you - the audience - into an interactive - theatrical concert with music by Leonard Bernstein. You will be drawn into the world of the West Side Story through the brand new compositions of David Dramm, Vanessa Lann, Ron Ford, Ned McGowan and Tatiana Koleva and the energizing performance of the ensemble.

Have you ever thought about playing percussion? Orchestral percussion? And moreover triangle? Easy? … or not? You could try it with the Youth Percussion Pool and see how Leonard Bernstein does it!

Members of the Youth Percussion Pool will prepare the audience to be part of the actual concert by offering special workshops prior to the performance:

• 12.00-12.30 uur - Workshop How to Play the Triangle
• 13.45-14.15 uur - Workshop How to Play the Triangle (bis)

› More info about How to play the triangle (première)

The Berlin-based Stegreif Orchester is unlike any other orchestra. These young musicians see eye contact with their audience as more important than hiding behind their music stands. They also prefer grooving their way through a piece rather than following the compulsory beat of a conductor’s baton. They prefer to move around to being chained to a chair. They memorise entire symphonies and introduce countless improvisations into their performances. Their #freebrahms programme is an experience like no other.

The Oranjewoud Festival is proud to be organising the international debut of this unique orchestra. As distinctive as this orchestra is, it requires a special venue for this occasion: the Thialf Heerenveen ice hockey stadium, more than 50 years old, will be specially prepared for this event. On a performing surface of 1800 square metres, the orchestra will mingle with the audience during its unique and exhilarating rendition of Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. During the four movements of this symphony, the Stegreif Orchester will demonstrate how the identity of this music written 136 years ago can undergo a complete transformation and win the hearts of audiences of all ages.

Some delightful details

• The Stegreif Orchester was founded by horn player Juri de Marco in 2016.
• Despite its newness, the orchestra has already garnered various high-prestige awards such as the German D-Bü Award, the Start-Up Music Award and the Würth Award.
• It has also received rave reviews in newspapers and magazines such as The Strad, Die Zeit, Berliner Morgenpost and Süddeutsche.
• As the Oranjewoud Festival’s orchestra in residence, the Stegreif Orchester can be heard at various times in a range of guises during festival events that include the Night of the Park and the Zonsopgangconcert.

› More info about #freebrahms

In The Well Prepared Piano, Norwegian pianist Mathias Halvorsen plays Bach on modified versions of the piano. He developed these new instruments together with other musicians, composers and artists, each of whom turned to the various opportunities presented by their own field to result in what were often highly unconventional ideas for these modifications.

Rubber bands
In Bach’s time, the tuning of instruments wasn’t the equal temperament we know today; instead, it varied depending on harmony. Halvorsen’s version makes use of rubber bands so that instead of the tuning changing, the tone changes per note along with a range of funky sounds as a bonus.

Wooden rods
The input provided by artist Ingibjorg Fridirksdottir lead to Halvorsen attaining a vibrant effect with the use of wooden rods. These not only move when the piano is played - in which they tap softly against each other - but also distort the pitch slightly after striking each key.

Ping pong balls
Artist Michael Rauter filled the piano with ping pong balls. The result is a clear, gentle instrument. The freely-moving little balls provide lovely embellishments. When played softly, they chatter and sing. Play this piano more forcefully, however, and they fly every which way.

Vibrators
Merrill Beth Nisker (alias Peaches), a Canadian electronic musician and performance artist, chose to modify a piano by trying out vibrators in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Each generated a different sound: some were like machine guns while others made no sound at all. In the end, she chose a silver-coloured vibrator that mimicked the sound of an organ when playing Bach’s compositions.

Paint brushes
Inspired by Bara Gisladottir’s beautiful composition, Prussian Blue, this version uses paint brushes to create an extremely soft, intimate sound. The rhythmic, breathy sound of brushes on the strings makes Bach sound like the morning mist on a lake.

› More info about The Well Prepared Piano

Jazz was hot at the beginning of the twentieth century. Almost every composer who heart it fell for its charms. Saxophone-piano duo Mader/Papandreopoulos will present four very different examples of this fascination for jazz. One is Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff’s Hot Sonate that features many melodic and rhythmic elements typical of jazz. Picnic on the Marne by the American composer Ned Rorem consists of four short colourful waltzes influenced by jazz. The pieces that Ravel called Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) had originally been written for piano. Here, they will be performed in an arrangement for saxophone and piano. The concert concludes with George Gershwin’s well-known An American in Paris. Whereas other composers were simply influenced by jazz, Gershwin wanted to take jazz to another level. He wanted to be taken seriously as a composer of classical music.

The Dutch Classical Talent Tour & Award is well known in the Dutch world of classical music. A professional jury judges those who audition for it and select four winners who then go on tour. Yoram Ish-Hurwitz, a member of this jury and also the artistic director of the Oranjewoud Festival, was impressed by the irresistibly infectious playing of Mader and Papandreopoulos and invited them to perform at Oranjewoud.

› More info about What’s Jazzing?

Her name goes back to the beginning of our timeline: Maria. It’s resounded through the centuries, never losing any of its appeal. From madonna to majesty: The Marias just keep coming and going. Maria Callas, Mary Poppins, Bloody Mary: where would history be without its Marias? She was the muse for a long line of composers: Palestrina, Reger, Rodgers & Hammerstein. Wishful Singing’s ode to Our Ladies brings them all together in What about Mary?, a programme of melodies with a Maria in the leading role. After all, without a Maria, there would have been no Sound of Music.

Anne-Christine Wemekamp, eerste sopraan
Maria Goetze, tweede sopraan
Marjolein Verburg, mezzosopraan
Janneke Vis, eerste alt
Marjolein Stots, tweede alt
Regie: Annechien Koerselman
 

› More info about What about Mary?

In The Well Prepared Piano, Norwegian pianist Mathias Halvorsen plays Bach on modified versions of the piano. He developed these new instruments together with other musicians, composers and artists, each of whom turned to the various opportunities presented by their own field to result in what were often highly unconventional ideas for these modifications.

Rubber bands
In Bach’s time, the tuning of instruments wasn’t the equal temperament we know today; instead, it varied depending on harmony. Halvorsen’s version makes use of rubber bands so that instead of the tuning changing, the tone changes per note along with a range of funky sounds as a bonus.

Wooden rods
The input provided by artist Ingibjorg Fridirksdottir lead to Halvorsen attaining a vibrant effect with the use of wooden rods. These not only move when the piano is played - in which they tap softly against each other - but also distort the pitch slightly after striking each key.

Ping pong balls
Artist Michael Rauter filled the piano with ping pong balls. The result is a clear, gentle instrument. The freely-moving little balls provide lovely embellishments. When played softly, they chatter and sing. Play this piano more forcefully, however, and they fly every which way.

Vibrators
Merrill Beth Nisker (alias Peaches), a Canadian electronic musician and performance artist, chose to modify a piano by trying out vibrators in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Each generated a different sound: some were like machine guns while others made no sound at all. In the end, she chose a silver-coloured vibrator that mimicked the sound of an organ when playing Bach’s compositions.

Paint brushes
Inspired by Bara Gisladottir’s beautiful composition, Prussian Blue, this version uses paint brushes to create an extremely soft, intimate sound. The rhythmic, breathy sound of brushes on the strings makes Bach sound like the morning mist on a lake.

› More info about The Well Prepared Piano (bis)

They were two very different composers - a Russian and an American - but each was a pioneer in his own way: Stravinsky and Gershwin. Le sacre du printemps caused a riot in Paris in which members of the audience attacked one another in a fight said to have resulted in injuries. With his Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano and jazz band, Gershwin provided a wonderful demonstration of how jazz and classical music could be united. Both works had one thing in common: rhythm would never be the same in classical music. Master pianist Ralph van Raat will treat the audience to two unique versions arranged for the piano.

Le sacre du printemps revolves around an ancient ritual with rhythm playing the leading role. Meanwhile, harmony and melody - the traditional ideals of beauty typical of classical music - are of less importance. The savage rhythms elicited in this masterpiece by a large orchestra roll like thunder over the listener. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is a favourite of many and might be his most well-known work. Although lacking swing and improvisation, it includes elements of both ‘white jazz’ such as instrumentation and jazz rhythms, and ‘black jazz’ such as the use of ‘blue notes’.

› More info about Rythms of a New Era

The commonly held view of classical musicians is that they are always striving for the ultimate in technical playing ability. This enables them to convey classical music in all of its refinements in order to allow the audience to share in the music’s underlying world of emotions. But they’re not that great when it comes to improvisation. Jazz musicians seem to be just the opposite: technique is less important than grooving, flexibility and a talent for improvisation - things that let them capture the more laid-back feel of jazz music. Jazz violinist Julia Philippens (also a member of Fuse) and jazz pianist Xavi Torres don’t agree. Both were trained as classical musicians and believe that classical technical skills can take the expressiveness and refinement of jazz to new heights. To create the perfect marriage between control and freedom, they formed a new duo and chose the Oranjewoud Festival as one of the first venues to present themselves.

By performing together, they are finding what they sometimes miss in their immediate musical environment. The pieces they compose for each other give them the chance to be totally themselves while still challenging them to rediscover themselves in order to keep the piece interesting. This programme shows just how vulnerable performing as a duo can be. There’s no bass or drums to fall back on during bold improvisations. The farther they deviate from the original composition, the more exciting the return to the main theme. Be there to witness this musical quest.

› More info about The Art of Freedom

Moderne muziek. Wat is dat eigenlijk? Waar begint die, waar eindigt die? Ben je benieuwd naar eigentijdse muziek, maar weet je niet waar te beginnen, dan is het boekje Een os op het dak een ideale gids. In het tijdsbestek van uur helpt Thea Derks, auteur van het boekje, je op weg zodat je iets meer begrijpt over moderne en hedendaagse muziek. In kort bestek komen de belangrijkste ontwikkelingen vanaf begin twintigste eeuw aan bod. Het vormt een welkome introductie voor de geïnteresseerde leek en vormt tegelijkertijd een beknopt vademecum voor de kenner. Want hoe zat het ook alweer met bijvoorbeeld atonaliteit, serialisme of minimalisme? Een boeiend samenzijn voor leken en experts.
 

› More info about Een os op het dak

World-famous Swedish mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter collaborates with the American string quartet Brooklyn Rider to perform works by Caroline Shaw, Colin Jacobsen, Nico Muhly, Björk, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush and many others. The result is a programme so brilliant and colourful in many ways that it forms one of the highlights of the festival.

Pieces of music are often stuffed into pigeonholes even though there are so many factors that interconnect the various genres. When Von Otter and Brooklyn Rider put this concert programme together, they ignored such artificial designations as classical, jazz or pop by simply keying in on whether the music was meaningful for them or not. In order to create a natural blend from the human voice and the sounds of the strings, they looked for the works of the best composers, songwriters and arrangers they could find.

› More info about So Many Things

Shadows, the new album by harpist Remy van Kesteren, was released early 2019. The groundbreaking album is the result of an almost three-year musical search for his own sound. Originality without harp, apart from expectation and habituation: what remains? Electronic, minimal, ambient, jazz, pop, world music, classical: everything flows together in Shadows.

REMY: "Fink has always been a great source of inspiration because he seems to know no boundaries within music. He is such a versatile musician/producer. You can recognize his groove and sound from thousands. It was amazing to work with him so intensely on Shadows. We both went to great lengths to create a new world together. "

Blauwe Uur

The music is accompanied by Blauwe Uur (translated Blue Hour). Projections and video mapping on the surrounding trees of the nocturnal Overtuin take the audience into a poetic visual world.

› More info about Shadows by REMY

Greet the day and get up before the sun peeps above the horizon. On this special morning, you will be welcomed by the members of the Stegreif Orchester while they sprinkle the awakening world of nature with the first musical notes as if they were dewdrops on freshly emerged leaves. As the audience dribbles in, the fragments of music unfold into one of the highlights of the romantic concert repertoire: The Violin Concerto by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Subtly at first but then gradually more clearly, violinist Rosanne Philippens breaks loose from the other strolling members of the orchestra into an interpretation of the first movement of this masterpiece. The music seems to evoke a visit to the Finnish lakes: in places, dark and calm, at others bursting with movement and sparkling light. Long, majestic melody lines that use the full spectrum of sound produced by a violin are followed by passages requiring the greatest skills of a virtuoso violinist.

Yet anyone assuming that the musicians will follow the score literally from beginning to end will be surprised. Stegreif intersperses the work with improvisations that ultimately erupt into a wild Cuban dance. By then, it’s time for the musicians and their audience to share a delicious assortment of breakfast goodies. Bring on a brand-new day!

Schedule Zonsopgangconcert:

• 5.00-6.00 uur - Concert at the FB Oranjewoud Paviljoen
• 6.15-7.00 uur - Breakfast in De Proeftuin
   

› More info about Sunrise Concert

8 Saxophones and a Yogini will guide you into a mesmerizing flow where music, breath and movement become one. Surrender to the waves of Canto Ostinato, an intriguing, ever changing yet repetitive piece of music composed by Simeon Ten Holt. Enjoy the playful interaction between movement and sound, tension and release, continuity and flow. Let the music guide you into a meditative state of mind and be hypnotized by the rhythm of a continuous yoga flow of breathe and movement. Dive into an adventure that invites the mind to become still and nourishes the soul. Let the music move you on an emotional level and enjoy a wonderful journey through inner space.

› More info about Yoga in Concert

For anyone who wonders if it’s possible to reduce an entire opera to the use of two instruments, the answer is yes. But to do this, your names have to be Mathieu van Bellen and Mathias Halvorsen. They understand the art of abstraction like no one else. For this brand-new project, they perform Puccini’s famous La Bohème in an arrangement they created themselves. In doing so, they reduced the music performed originally by the soloists, the choir and the orchestra to a work for violin and piano. This is then backed by projected texts, subtitles, descriptions and passages from Henri Murgers novel, Scènes de la Vie de Bohème, on which the opera about the life of poor young Parisian artists was based.

La Bohème is one of Puccini’s most beautiful operas and is characterised by its magnificent melodies and by joy contrasted with tragedy. The idea behind Halvorsen and Van Bellen’s project was to present this masterpiece in a new, transparent and intimate way. In this version, the lyrics, music and story coalesce into pure poetry. In this sense, La Bohème is approached more as a narrative than a visual spectacle. Here, it is the power of the imagination that provides the key to enter Puccini’s magical world.

› More info about La Bohème

Domenico Scarlatti is a mystery. Apart from his sonatas, almost nothing remains of his other compositions and we know little about his life. This makes what we actually know about him all the more intriguing. Celebrated pianist Daria van den Bercken focused her attention on some of the more than 560 sonatas that Scarlatti left behind. Her interpretations of these miniatures are as individualised as the pieces are different and unique. Some of the sonatas fit together hand in glove while others display huge contrasts. The result is a mosaic of gems that she plays in short groups and explains in between.

› More info about Mosaic of Pearls

You could refuse to listen to it. After all, how could a trendy band dare dishonour the greatest songwriter of all time? Pop arrangements, and then in English. Ugh! But if you let yourself be tempted to sneak into a performance, you might be surprised at how quickly your preconceptions evaporate. Not only are they pathfinders for a new generation of Schubert fans, but they also provide a brand-new look at his universally acclaimed song repertoire. Every arrangement and interpretation display a genuine love and respect for Schubert. At the same time, there’s the willingness to break with all the conventions to discover new facets of these magnificent songs.

Ultimately, you’ll see The Erlkings as being a very valuable addition to Schubert’s legacy. They actually build a bridge between popular love songs written by today’s singer-song writers and the songs of great song composers of the past. The songs of Schubert and Schumann are being rediscovered as based on a modern English vocabulary. The unusual combination of voice, guitar, cello, tuba and drums produces a new world of sound that even the most conservative expert in the art of song-writing will enjoy as if hearing it for the first time.

Tip: If you’d like to hear what the original sounds like, don’t miss the performance by Andrew Dickinson and Matthew Fletcher on Sunday, 2 June in the Rabobank Pavilion.

› More info about Die schöne Müllerin #1

In The Well Prepared Piano speelt de Noorse pianist Mathias Halvorsen Bach op aangepaste versies van de piano. Deze nieuwe instrumenten ontwikkelde hij samen met andere musici, componisten en kunstenaars die ieder de verschillende mogelijkheden en hun vaak eigenzinnige ideeën voor deze aanpassingen onderzochten.

Wat gebeurt er bijvoorbeeld als je elastiekjes om de snaren van een vleugel doet? Of die vol pingpongballen legt? In deze workshop kun je onder begeleiding van Mathias zelf aan de slag.

› More info about Xtreme Piano

This ensemble, assembled especially for the festival, consists of Georgian-Dutch pianist Nata Tsvereli and five wind instrument players from the Noord Nederlands Orkest. Their shared passion for music guarantees an unforgettable concert. Their programme features the trio and sextet written by Francis Poulenc along with a wind quintet by Paul Taffanel.

The listener is fully aware of the humour, high spirits and French charm, as well as the sublime craftsmanship that Stravinsky and other composers so admired in Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano.

His sextet involves a unique story. Although completed in 1931, the composer was unhappy with the result for a long time. In 1933, he made a new attempt, but it was not until 1940, after the Germans had defeated the French, that Poulenc completed the piece in an attempt to defend French culture. The work is written to make the best possible use of the timbres produced by each instrument. André Georges, a music critic, captured the movement's sunny character, by writing that ‘When Poulenc opens a window, all France comes in’.

*The five wind instrument players are:

• Francesco Gatti, flute
• Justine Gerretsen, oboe
• Rob van der Vlugt, clarinet
• Marije van der Ende, bassoon
• Hanna Guirten, horn

› More info about Summer Winds

For around fifty hypnotising minutes, the cellists of Cello Octet Amsterdam will play 8, a new work by American composer Michael Gordon, one of the founders of the new and exciting New York music collective known as Bang on a Can. For this performance, the cellists are arranged in an imaginary circle around their audience seated on benches and cushions. As the music hums, saws, sizzles and swishes, a sense of timelessness falls over the listeners. The sound engulfs the audience in waves and then pulls back only to re-emerge as an approaching tsunami. Rhythms tumble over each other, slowly creating shifting patterns to encircle the audience like whirlpools. Finally, the musicians direct their music to one another and seem to disappear in ever softer sounds into an endless universe of silence.

Michael Gordon about this ensemble: “Eight cellos is an ocean of sound. It is mysterious and has an inevitability about its power. I have traveled up and down the secret passageways of the cello, exploring strange sparkling notes and the notes between the notes. I can drown in the lowest spectrum of the cello, the true powerhouse of the bass; but in the upper realms incomprehensible worlds become visible, wispy beams of sound bend into thin air and disappear. It is with great anticipation that I look towards a new work for Cello Octet.”

The première performances of 8 were given at the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam and Festival November Music in Den Bosch.

› More info about 8 by Michael Gordon

It was more than a hundred years ago that an end came to the First World War: a drama leaving behind deep wounds and marking the transition from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ Europe. Although Europe today has never known such a long period of relative peace, in the 21st century we can still see parallels with that earlier time. Inspired by this idea, Wolfert Brederode composed Ruins & Remains, a suite for piano, percussion and string quartet in ten contiguous sections lasting a total of about 70 minutes. This composition uses improvisation versus written score, minor versus major keys, and abstract or tonal musical relationships to evoke human duality. These contrasts come together in the form of a unique musical universe: a musical contemplation about the destructive side of human nature and an ode to its resilience.

› More info about Ruins & Remains

Part 1: Scheherazade’s Dream (22.30 to 23.40)
You can enjoy the mini-concerts given by the 30 musicians of the Stegreif Orchester in bobbing boats, the twisted branches of an old beech, in a dome-shaped tent and at various hidden locations throughout the garden. Stroll from place to place and be delighted by the magical sounds of Terry Riley’s In C.

Part 2: Midnight Concert (0.00 to 1.00)
As the midnight hour approaches, everyone will assemble at the main stage to listen to the Midnight Concert given by Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer. Close your eyes and slip away into the warm sounds of Satie, Glass and Debussy until a harmonious darkness envelops you and almost lulls you to sleep.

› More info about Night of the Park

In this work, Bach’s famous interpretation of the passion of Christ is condensed into a musical narrative for tenor, harpsichord, chamber organ and percussion. Unlike the original, the entire passion - from recitatives to arias - is sung by a tenor. Inspired by the original performance practice, the audience joins in on singing the chorales. Moreover, concentrating the music to such an extent and involving the audience in its lyrics increases the drama, intensity and timeliness of the Biblical story.

Previous to the performance, the musicians provide the audience with a short workshop to prepare them for their role in it.

This version of Bach’s Passion is a project provided by PODIUM, an organisation that has been collaborating with the Oranjewoud Festival for a number of years.

› More info about Johannes Passion

This concert is actually half of a diptych; the other half is the concert performed by The Erlkings the day before. Whereas the band approached Schubert’s song repertoire from the standpoint of troubadours, thus shedding a fresh new light on Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, this is the original version of the piece.

The cycle consists of twenty of Wilhelm Müller’s poems set to music. Together, they tell the story of a travelling apprentice who starts working at a mill and falls in love with the miller’s beautiful daughter. She, however, falls for the charms of a hunter. Heartbreak causes the boy to drown himself in the millpond.

Just as in his equally famous cycle entitled Die Winterreise, the natural world is a key feature. While everything is gradually blinded by a snowy landscape in Die Winterreise, green predominates in Die schöne Müllerin: young love, the approaching spring, and the colours of the hunter and the nearby forest. Here, the romanticist speaks of nature as a force that dominates humans without them being able to understand or even conceive of what is happening to them.

Tip: If you want to hear the scandalous version of Die schöne Müllerin, don’t miss The Erlkings performing it on Saturday, 1 June at 15.15.

› More info about Die schöne Müllerin #2

The Berlin-based Stegreif Orchester is unlike any other orchestra. These young musicians see eye contact with their audience as more important than hiding behind their music stands. They also prefer grooving their way through a piece rather than following the compulsory beat of a conductor’s baton. They prefer to move around to being chained to a chair. They memorise entire symphonies and introduce countless improvisations into their performances. Their #freebrahms programme is an experience like no other.

The Oranjewoud Festival is proud to be organising the international debut of this unique orchestra. As distinctive as this orchestra is, it requires a special venue for this occasion: the Thialf Heerenveen ice hockey stadium, more than 50 years old, will be specially prepared for this event. On a performing surface of 1800 square metres, the orchestra will mingle with the audience during its unique and exhilarating rendition of Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. During the four movements of this symphony, the Stegreif Orchester will demonstrate how the identity of this music written 136 years ago can undergo a complete transformation and win the hearts of audiences of all ages.

Some delightful details

• The Stegreif Orchester was founded by horn player Juri de Marco in 2016.
• Despite its newness, the orchestra has already garnered various high-prestige awards such as the German D-Bü Award, the Start-Up Music Award and the Würth Award.
• It has also received rave reviews in newspapers and magazines such as The Strad, Die Zeit, Berliner Morgenpost and Süddeutsche.
• As the Oranjewoud Festival’s orchestra in residence, the Stegreif Orchester can be heard at various times in a range of guises during festival events that include the Night of the Park and the Zonsopgangconcert.

› More info about #freebrahms (bis)

The Dudok Quartet’s forthright and inspiring performance lets its audience see and hear that what they play is neither old nor new but today’s music. Music that should be heard, this is music that touches the heart, befuddles our heads and makes a lasting impression.

For the Oranjewoud Festival, they selected two contrasting string quartets by Beethoven with quite a story behind them: String Quartet No. 1 in F Major and String Quartet No. 13 in B Flat Major. What do they have in common? For one thing, they were both thoroughly rewritten. Beethoven completely reconstructed his first string quartet two years after he wrote it. ‘It wasn’t until now that I learned how to write a quartet’, Beethoven confided to violinist friend of his. For his thirteenth quartet, he gave it a different finale shortly after its première. The original Grosse Fuge, already monumental in tone and scope, was expanded to create an acclaimed and separate work. Meanwhile, the corresponding quartet was given a much lighter, slightly folkloric finale. Both works show Beethoven at his most versatile: from flashy to lilting, from brawny to passionate.

› More info about The First, Late and Eternal Beethoven

Forget for a moment what you think you know about classical music, violins, or the stuffy proprieties of attending concerts. Fuse quickly sweeps you into their musical world - a world you didn’t know you needed until you experienced it. The distinctive sounds of this eccentric sextet are sizzling, exciting and provocative.

For years, Fuse has served as the house band for the Dutch TV programme ‘Podium Witteman’, but the route the group has taken since 2012 is less well-known: since then, they have made hundreds of performances in smoky clubs, serene churches and venues ranging from outdoor music festivals to concert halls. Their hours spent on stage, in the TV studio, and experimenting in the rehearsal room have become a part of their DNA. This is a musical entity that explodes off the stage. In the world of Fuse, you’ll find traces of jazz, Baroque and folk music, swing, minimal music and improvisations that make every performance a new discovery. See and hear it at Oranjewoud! 

› More info about Fuse Live (Final Concert)