Mohsen Namjoo vocals and setar
Sahand Sahebdivani narrator

If you flee your homeland, can you pack up your stories and take them with you? Soloists Mohsen Namjoo and Sahand Sahebdivani give their eager response to this question in this extraordinary NBE performance. Mohsen Namjoo is known as Iran’s answer to Bob Dylan: his critical songs awakened so much resistance that he felt compelled to flee his homeland to America. Storyteller Sahand brings the stories to life that his parents left behind in Iran as political refugees: universal stories about abandoning and being abandoned. Together with these two soloists, the NBE puts on a show about war and flight, but also about hope for a new world. The NBE plays music by the young Iranian composer Kaveh Vares.

The Netherlands Wind Ensemble’s New Year’s concerts have now become as inseparable from New Year’s Day as ski jumping and the Viennese Waltz. It’s a surprising musical party with unexpected guests from all over the world, extraordinary stories and new compositions from young composers.

“It’s hard to think of a nicer way to start off the New Year than with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble’s New Year’s Concert in the Concertgebouw. Every year it’s a cheerful group, although the melancholy and depth are never far away, and each time when it comes to an end, there’s the same lament: if only all people on earth were musicians, there would never be another war.” Het Parool (****)

Johannette Zomer soprano
Frans Fiselier baritone
Bernard Loonen tenor

The NBE does it again, transforming one of the most fascinating operas in musical history into a pocket format. Twelve wind musicians and three singers reduce Mozart’s Don Giovanni to its core: a dazzling opera with a smile and a tear, dress up parties guaranteed.

They do everything themselves: the adaptation, lighting, sound and decor. If three singers aren’t enough, then the wind musicians join in with the melody. It’s not a mega-production with an enormous budget, but a pocket opera that can be unfolded and set up on any street corner in the blink of an eye. Following Die Zauberflöte and Die Fledermaus, among others, the NBE adds another unforgettable classic to its series of successful pocket operas.

JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU MUSIC
WILLEM VAN MERWIJK ADAPTATION

The wind that makes the bells toll – with Les Boréades, the wind ensemble add a classic to a series of so-called Plus concerts. The players share their passion for the piece with the public, with Rameau’s handwriting playing a special major role.

Why was Rameau’s opera Les Boréades rehearsed but never performed during his lifetime? Was the piece too politically sensitive, the music too difficult, or was it because the theatre burned down? Whatever the reason, the opera was forgotten and only came to light two centuries later, in 1963. Strange, because Rameau’s Symphonie Imaginaire is an unforgettable masterpiece: visual, vivid and compelling.

Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy music
Micha Hamel, Willem van Merwijk adaptation
Gerda Dendooven live painting
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer text and narration

Three wonderful stories, three extraordinary soloists. Flemish illustrator Gerda Dendooven who brings Ma mère l’Oye to life, live on stage. Image of legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev in Vaclav Nijinski’s renowned choreography for L’apres-midi d’un faune from 1912. Writer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer who tells a new story from the soldier from La boîte à joujoux. A performance in which image, music and words merge to create a wonderful story.

Greed, power, servitude, love, deceit, murder, betrayal, downfall – Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung brings all the passions and calamities of human life onto the stage. The Dutch theatre collective Hotel Modern transforms Wagner’s gigantic work into a fascinating piece of miniature theatre set in the world of insects. The story that spans four evenings in the original is here told compactly in 90 minutes, while Wagner’s colossal score is played by 21 instrumentalists of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. In Wagner, the Nibelung Alberich can change shape using the “tarnhelm”, and many insects do that too in this version: the caterpillar metamorphosing into a butterfly, the nymph into a grasshopper. Whereas three Rhine Maidens guard the gold in Wagner, Hotel Modern have three jellyfish guarding an already forged ring.

All the marionettes, puppets and landscapes for the production have been created with great love of detail by Hotel Modern. These actors and backdrops will be filmed live and projected on a magnified scale during the performance. A highly unusual piece of music theatre.