Newsletter July 2019

v o l u m e 5 - n u m b e r 1 - j u ly 2 0 1 9

RCO House Officially Open!

The new residence of the Royal Concert-

rooms and a common room which togeth-

traat 16 in Amsterdam, was opened on

bring the audience closer to the orchestra.

gebouw Orchestra, at Gabriël MetsusSaturday 19 January 2019. Amsterdam

er create a welcoming dynamic that will

Mayor Femke Halsema calls the RCO

A foundation for the future

performances, a place for musicians to

ing the Concertgebouw neighbours and

House ‘a home for creators, a stage for rehearse and experiment, and a place the orchestra can meet with each other and with the surrounding community.’

Finding a new home for the orchestra is

the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream.

For many years, the orchestra searched for a suitable location where orchestra staff

and musicians come together for their work and also welcome in the public, do-

nors and other interested parties. This

audience as well as donors and other re-

lations. As Mayor Halsema put it, ‘This

house is a place where the entire orchestra family – that’s the musicians, staff, everyone – can invite the world in for a visit. As you already know, but I’m happy to tell

you again because of the immense value this has for Amsterdam, the RCO offers

of greater Amsterdam, to the illustrious

certgebouw. Ten acoustically insulated music studios provide musicians with ide-

al rehearsal spaces and a state-of-the-art space be used for chamber music concerts,

rehearsals, presentations and educational activities. In addition to the offices and

conference rooms, there are reception

Wiet Pot, Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema, Jan Raes, Fons van Westerloo and David Bazen.

and young culture lovers.

and companies, in an iconic and historiplein, within a stone’s throw of The Con-

Sebastiaan Capel, Joop Janssen, Joel Ethan Fried,

a wide range of activities tailored for new

Ranging from the students of the Sweel-

cally significant building on the Museum-

short video of the RCO House opening here.

The opening festivities focused on meet-

dream has finally come true, thanks to

the support of private individuals, funds

Online newsletter readers can watch a

inck College next door to all the schools

own Academy which is attracting gifted students from all over the world, and, as of this summer, RCO Young, a new inter-

national youth orchestra created especially for young talent that needs some extra

support on their way. For all of these activities, for this intensive involvement with the city of Amsterdam, there now finally is a foundation, a home.’

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reserve now 13 september 2019

Supporting Young Talent who registered through the Side by Side network. The selection process was rigorous; each applicant had to list at least two

references to support their application.

Lili Schutte, project leader of RCO Young, had her hands full processing it all, but

the responses of not only the selected candidates but also those who were turned

down made up for that in spades. One applicant who had not made the selection wrote her: ‘I am very thankful for your

time and consideration. It’s been a great experience to apply for the RCO Young In the course of the Side by Side project,

this programme they will receive inten-

musicians that the experiences the tour

cians. RCO Young, with conductor Pablo

it became clear to RCO leadership and afforded the European youth orchestras

were invaluable. They hatched a plan to stimulate these young musicians by establishing a unique youth orchestra based in Amsterdam RCO Young.

In August 2019 the first new summer or-

chestra for ‘hidden talents’ from all over Europe will be ready. Highly talented

young musicians, ages 14 to 17, have been selected who do not have access to a suitable level of music education. Through

sive musical tutoring from RCO musiHeras-Casado, will perform Tchaikovsky’s

Symphony No. 5, and more, in the Main

orchestra and an experience in which I

learned a lot. Thank you for your feedback.

I will do my best to correct these mistakes

and improve my playing, so when I apply next year I can do better.’

Hall of the Concertgebouw on 23 August,

Thanks to the indispensable contribu-

Additionally, they will perform chamber

nors, there will definitely be a next time.

and in Flagey in Brussels on 24 August. music concerts in various configurations in the open air theatre of the Vondelpark

(18 August) and the Amsterdam Hall of the RCO House on 22 August.

The 73 young musicians from 27 countries were chosen from hundreds of applicants

tions from several funds and private doRCO Young is not only a wonderful way for the orchestra to fill a need for good talent

development programmes, it also strongly promotes, as does the Side by Side tour, the democratic ideal of Europe and enhances the sense of community and unity that crosses all borders.

RCO MEETS EUROPE On 1 February 2019 the RCO presented

Jan Raes, with head of planning and pro-

rope/Side by Side’: A book full of beautiful

managers and orchestra assistants. The

the final act of the project ‘RCO meets Eu-

photographs, background stories and essays, eponymously named RCO meets Europe.

duction Lisette Castel, and with the tour beautiful photography furthermore tells

the story of this extraordinarily successful project again without words.

For two years beginning in 2016, the RCO

Food for thought

ropean Union. In each country, the or-

tural, political and academic heavyweights

toured every member state of the Euchestra played the overture in tandem

with a youth orchestra from the country

they were visiting, embracing and emphasising the concept and importance of European unity. The young musicians were mentored and performed together

on stage with the RCO musicians—Side

by Side. The stories that unfolded amidst the intercultural and logistical operations

required for a project of this scale were revisited in the book through interviews

with ambassadors, Managing Director

The essays in the book are written by cul-

from Belgium, Spain, and Georgia among

expressed his praise for the organisation

importance, the context and the meaning

volved. A number of the essay competition

others. Their essays focus attention on the

of a project such as this, giving the reader plenty of food for thought. The RCO creat-

ed an essay competition for young people from across Europe, aged 18 to 30, focusing on the role that music plays in their own lives. The ten prize winners explore

the culture-transcending value and magic of classical music in depth. At a festive presentation of RCO meets Europe, Jan Raes 2

of the project and the young musicians in-

winners were also in attendance, having combined the presentation with a cultural weekend trip in Amsterdam. The winner Olger Glorie, of the Netherlands, read his

poetic essay ‘Music?’ to an appreciative audience.

The book RCO meets Europe is available via the webshop of the RCO for €19.95.

RCO VIOLINIST WINS AWARDS AT QUEEN ELISABETH COMPETITION Sylvia Huang, the Belgian first violinist of the RCO, won two audience awards at

in a decade, was hired as first violinist at

vas-Klara and Musiq’3-La Trois awards totaling €5,000, she received €4,000 for her

member of the orchestra at the time. Be-

the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in May 2019. In addition to the Canplace as a finalist thanks to support from the Belgian Lottery.

At the Queen Elisabeth Competition this

and the set piece Fidl by Finnish composer

the National Orchestra of Belgium led by

both audience awards. The competition

year 25-year-old Huang, accompanied by

Hugo Wolff, scored high marks for her in-

terpretation of Dvorák’s Violin Concerto

Kimmo Hakola, leading to her winning was won by the American Stella Chen.

Sylvia Huang, the first Belgian finalist

the RCO in 2014, making her the youngest

fore that, she was co-soloist in the Belgian National Orchestra. In addition to her work in the orchestra, Huang and fellow

RCO musicians Mirelys Morgan Verdecia, Martina Forni and Honorine Schaeffer have formed the successful GoYa Quartet.

RCO Academy continues to grow Auditions have drawn to a close for a

Gordejuela Aguirre (Spain), viola player

is ready, the academy students also have a

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In to-

Fabrizio Scilla (Italy), double bass player

play chamber music together. With signif-

place in the 2019-2020 Academy of the tal, 345 applicants competed for nine coveted places: four with the violins

and one for viola, cello, double bass and, percussion and horn. The selected

Olfje van der Klein (Netherlands), cellist

Marta Fossas Mallorqui (Spain), horn play-

er Fiorenzo Ritorto (Italy) and percussionist Alberto Rodríguez (Spain).

young musicians can now prepare them-

Orchestra positions

training at the highest level.

bouw Orchestra Academy is now a ful-

selves for an entire season of orchestral

The number of applicants was slightly lower than last season, which had to do

with the fact that a video audition is now

required. As a consequence, the preliminary online selection is far more rigorous.

According to the jury made up of orchestra

members, the level of the applicants was ‘insanely’ high this year. The chosen musicians are the violinists Marlene Dijkstra (Netherlands), Stefano Farulli (Italy), Igor Pollet (France) and Olatz Ruiz de

Founded in 2003, the Royal Concertgely-fledged training institute for profes-

sional orchestral musicians. Academy students participate in an intensive tenmonth programme during which they

live in Amsterdam, continuously interacting with the orchestra, and play in up to twelve productions. They receive tutoring

from RCO musicians, psychological train-

ing, Alexander Technique lessons, and play a great deal of chamber music. Audi-

tion preparation is also an important part of the training. Now that the RCO House 3

greater opportunity to study there and to

icant funding from private donors via the RCO Foundation, the Dutch Masters Foundation, and the Ammodo foundation, the

programme is succeeding in its mission, as many young alumni of the Academy have

moved on to orchestra positions. The RCO has hired ten alumni – violinist Coraline

Groen, one of this year’s academy students,

for example, has been appointed as second violinist for the coming season. Many others have been hired, partly thanks to their

time at the RCO Academy, by national and international orchestras, including the South Netherlands Philharmonic, Radio Philharmonic

Orchestra,

Netherlands

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Kremera-

ta Baltica, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Following the orchestra’s footsteps Last March a group of loyal supporters

of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were invited to join a four-day trip to

Berlin. As well as meeting a number of

the orchestra musicians and attending an RCO concert in the Konzerthaus Ber-

lin, the programme included visits to the Bundestag and to a Berliner Philharmoniker concert in the Philharmonie.

The RCO played a complete Stravinsky

programme with Ivan Fischer conducting.

The donor group also attended an elegant reception at the Dutch embassy where a

delegation

from

the

Freundeskreiz

Schweiz also were present. The schedule

DUTCH MASTERS FOUNDATION GALA

portunity to speak with musicians about

The annual Dutch Masters Foundation

£90,000 for each of the three Dutch Mas-

The four-day trip not only gave the donors

success. It was held in the headquar-

shuis and the Nederlands Dans Theater.

was quite full, and donors had the optheir touring.

much more understanding of the life of an orchestra musician – the traveling, the

waiting, the rehearsals, the chamber mu-

sic activities in between – it also brought the orchestra and the supporters closer

together. ‘You drink something together on a terrace, and you talk about a lot of

things’, said long-time supporter Bas Rachman, who joined the orchestra together with his wife Maud Kamstra.

In addition, Berlin, a city where the orchestra performs regularly, came to life in

a beautiful way. Supporter Bas Rachman stated, ‘We have been going to the see the

dinner on 29 November 2018 was a great ters of Christie’s auction house on King

Street in London with 140 guests, including guests of honour Princess Mabel of

Oranje-Nassau, founding patron of the Dutch Masters Foundation, the Dutch ambassador in England and patron of

support the RCO Academy’s 2018-2019 season and for the new RCO Young pro-

gram, a new international orchestra of talented young musicians from across.

The Dutch Masters Foundation was cre-

Dutch ambassador Pim Waldeck and his

Great Britain with the opportunity to

wife, and the DMF patron and erstwhile

wife. Guests were treated to Mozart’s

Clarinet Quintet played by five RCO mu-

sicians starring clarinettist Annemiek de Bruin, and a dance performance by the Nederlands Dans Theater.

During the sumptuous dinner, an auc-

the orchestra. And now we get so much in

combined with other donations bringing

return.’

The orchestra is using this donation to

the foundation Simon Smits and his

RCO for twenty-five years now, our aim

was simply to contribute to the survival of

ters organisations – the RCO, the Maurit-

tion was held that raised £55,000, which

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ated in 2011 to provide Dutch people in support three of the most important

Dutch cultural institutions. The sug-

gested donation starts at an annual contribution of £5,000. Every year the Dutch Masters Foundation organises several

events for donors and concludes each

year with a gala dinner. In 2019, the gala dinner will take place in the Plaisterers’ Hall on Thursday 28 November.

JAN RAES ANNOUNCES DEPARTURE Managing Director Jan Raes will say farewell to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the end of 2019.

Many new initiatives were developed in

the years since the appointment of Jan Raes in 2008, cementing the RCO’s posi-

tion as one of the best orchestras in the world. Its reputation grew with its 2013

A successful US tour

world tour, which took the RCO around

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s

In Washington, D.C., a magnificent din-

ing of the RCO House brought to frui-

was a great success. Conducted by Dan-

Henne Schuwer and his wife. The dinner

tour of the United States in February

iel Harding, the concerts were met with enthusiastic reviews. The Side by Side

performance in New York, where the

RCO shared the stage with the National

Youth Orchestra of the United States,

ner was hosted by Dutch ambassador was followed by a performance at the Ken-

nedy Center for the Performing Arts where pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard shone in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5.

was one of the tour’s many highlights.

Music lovers and critics in the United

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has

New York with great interest. Not only was

always maintained excellent ties with its audience in the United States. During the

tour in February, this mutual and longstanding relationship was reaffirmed. The

tour began with a member dinner at the home of Eijk and Rose-Marie de Mol van

Otterloo on the eve of the two concerts in

Naples, Florida, with conductor Daniel Harding at the helm.

In Chicago, Consul General Louis Piët’s

elegant reception attended by more than fifty guests was a wonderful prelude to

the successful concert at the beautiful Chicago Symphony Center. The performance featured Brahms’s Symphony No.

States looked forward to the concerts in it the first time the RCO played Side by Side

with a non-European youth orchestra (the

loads of personality in the winds—not

least the two principal clarinets, Calogero Palermo and Olivier Patey, whose body

language was as engaging as their musicianship’.

chestra. Raes also played a critical part

in reaching new audiences, with new

programmes such as the multidisciplinary Horizons series and the Essentials concerts. Now that the orchestra is getting ready for a new stage in its career

as it searches for a new conductor, Raes says ‘the orchestra will benefit from a

fresh new face to give it direction in the coming era.’

ately to appoint a successor to Jan Raes.

tions. After a charming reception hosted

by Consul General Dolph Hogewoning,

the concert turned out to be a big success.

‘Dynamics were carefully balanced, with a

glassy delicacy to the music-box passages

and an almost tropical richness to the jubilant fanfares’, New York Times critic Corin-

na da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote in appreciation of the orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.

ship between the RCO and its US-based

Brahms performance, ‘there were boat-

tion a long-cherished dream of the or-

rent Aimard was met with great expecta-

orchestra and its chief conductor at the

critic Lawrence A. Johnson wrote of the

was a significant success and the open-

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

States), but the concert with Pierre-Lau-

The whole tour can be considered a very

time, Willem Mengelberg. Renowned

RCO meets Europe/Side by Side project

National Youth Orchestra of the United

4 and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben – a piece written in 1899 specifically for the

the world across all continents. The

successful affair, enriching the relationcommunity. The orchestra looks forward

to returning in early 2022. Until then, several musicians of the RCO will cross the

pond regularly to participate in chamber music concerts, educational projects and other special events organized for the American Friends.

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Foundation will begin a search immediChairman Wiet Pot announced that the Board ‘feels deeply indebted to Raes for

his leadership, creativity and vision, and would like to express its gratitude

for his substantial contribution to the success and development of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.’

RCO Performs at Rijksmuseum As part of the Rembrandt year, an ensemble from the Concertgebouw

Orchestra performed in the Hall of Fame of the Rijksmuseum on 24 May.

Concertmaster Liviu Prunaru performed

Haydn’s Concert for Violin and String

Orchestra no. 1 in C Major on a violin from c. 1610. This instrument was built

by Giovanni Paolo Magnini (c. 1580-c.

1630). The Rijksmuseum has this violin

on long-term loan from the Haags Gemeentemuseum.

Online newsletter readers can click here to watch the Rijksmuseum performance.

CALENDAR OF GLOBAL FRIENDS ACTIVITIES ASIA TOUR

To reserve your tickets, please

16 January 2020

h.henny@concertgebouworkest.nl.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

contact Henriette Henny at 13 September 2019 Opening Night

Concertgebouw Amsterdam Franz Welser-Möst, conductor Janine Jansen, violin

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Violin Concerto

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Fantasy Ouverture

Bozar Brussels

14 November 2019 (programme 1)

Hákan Hardenberger, trumpet

Paavo Järvi, conductor

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano

Ludwig van Beethoven – Ouverture ‘Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus’, op. 43 Brett Dean – Dramatis personae (trumpet concerto)

Alexander Skrjabin – Prometheus op. 60

Romeo and Juliet

9 February 2020

ballet ‘Swan Lake’

10 February 2020

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Suite from the 13 October 2019 Antwerp

Chamber music concert 4 October 2019 New York City

Chamber music concert 14 December 2019 Bozar Brussels

15 December 2019

Philharmonie Luxembourg 16 December 2019

Philharmonie de Paris Iván Fischer, conductor Isabelle Faust, violin

Tabea Zimmermann, viola

Philharmonie de Paris Victoria Hall Geneva

Myung-whun Chung, conductor Gustav Mahler – Symphony no. 9 13 March 2020

Philharmonie Essen

Semyon Bychkov, conductor Ivan Podyomov, oboe

Maurice Ravel – Le tombeau de Couperin Richard Strauss – Oboe Concerto

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Symphony no. 6, op. 74, ‘Pathétique’

National Theater and Concert Hall, Taipei L. von Beethoven, Symphony no. 4 D. Shostakovich, Symphony no. 10

15 November 2019 (programme 2)

National Theater and Concert Hall, Taipei Paavo Järvi, conductor Lars Vogt, piano

R. Wagner - Tannhäuser: Overture

L. von Beethoven - Piano Concerto no. 2 J. Brahms - Symphony no. 4

16 November 2019 (programme 2)

The National Taichung Theater, Taichung 19 November 2019 (programme 1) Suntory Hall, Tokyo

20 November 2019 (programme 2)

Aichi Prefectural Art Theatre, Nagoya 22 November 2019 (programme 2)

Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hall, Kawasaki 23 November 2019 (programme 1)

Sakai Performing Arts Center, Sakai

14 May 2020

Philharmonie Cologne

Myung-Whun Chung, conductor Gustav Mahler – Symphony no. 9

Acknowledgements Global Friends News is published by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

RCO Global Friends designated contact:

Gioachino Rossini – Ouverture ‘L’Italiana

Henriette Henny / +31 (0)20 305 1010

in Algeri’

rcofriends@concertgebouworkest.nl

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Symphony

Text and editing Paul Janssen, Translation Elise Reynolds Photos p.1 Jorrit Lousberg, p.4 top Peter Tollenaar, bottom Anne Christin Erbe p.5 Peter Tollenaar, p.6 Jan-Kees Steenman Graphic design Atelier Rene Knip & Rens Martens

Concertante, KV 364

Gioachino Rossini – Ouverture ‘La gazza ladra’ Joseph Haydn – Symphony no. 102 in B-flat

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