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On tour with the Orchestra of the 18th Century
03.09.2009
What better start to a new and exciting season than a tour and concerts with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen? On this occasion taking place in Warsaw, during the Chopin Festival, and in Utrecht, as part of that city’s Early Music Festival, and with music by two of this year’s birthday boys: Haydn and Mendelssohn.
The first of the concerts was in Warsaw: a version of Haydn’s Creation for children was performed to a hall full of toddlers (!) although some older children and many fathers, mothers, grandmas and grandpas were also present. Within half an hour the youngest kids began whirling around, running about or dozing off, but the somewhat older children were enjoying the concert, and, thanks to the Polish actor Krzysztof Gosztyla and the excellent team of soloists (Johannette Zomer, Marcel Beekman and David Wilson-Johnson) stayed listening attentively.
No less festive was the second concert in Warsaw, in which a young Japanese piano virtuoso, Aimi Kobayashi, just knee-high to a grasshopper and a mere thirteen years old, gave back-to-back performances of two piano concertos – Mozart’s in D minor K466 and Chopin’s No.2 in F minor (accompanied magnificently by Brüggen and his orchestra.) After this the ladies of the Nederlands Kamerkoor contributed to the festive atmosphere, joining the orchestra in a performance of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a work which then soon reappeared in a programme on the opening day of the Utrecht Early Music Festival, in a late evening open air performance in the Lepelenburg Park. The country had been ravaged all evening by autumnal thunder showers, but a dry spell lasting exactly 45 minutes ensured we could give this concert, in the company of an enthusiastic audience armed with plastic ponchos and umbrellas. Veejay Danielle Kwaaitaal provided fairy-tale images and magical lighting of the performance area, but ultimately it was the orchestra and the NKK ladies who commanded most of the attention!
Then on Sunday, in a packed Church of St.Augustine in Utrecht, followed the pièce de résistance: an impressive performance by the Nederlands Kamerkoor, Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century of Haydn’s unique choral work The Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross. The soloists (all NKK members) were Barbara Borden, Kathrin Pfeiffer, Albert van Ommen and Gilad Nezer. The new concert season has begun!
NB: The version of Haydn’s Creation for children will be performed again next Sunday, during the Utrecht Early Music Festival, at 13.00 in Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn. Tickets are still available!
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