The Six Branden­Burg ConCerToS

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the six BrandenBurg ConCertosAnne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Amandine Beyer, Rosas & B’Rock Orchestra

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Credits

An unreserved longing for harmony

Zigzag through Bach

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info Context

date & starting time Thu 6 June 2019, 8.15 pmFri 7 June 2019, 8.15 pmSat 8 June 2019, 8.15 pm

venueKoninklijk Theater Carré

running time2 hours no interval

introductionby Justa ter Haar7.30 pm

Credits

choreographyAnne Teresa De Keersmaeker

musical directionAmandine Beyer

musiciansB’Rock Orchestra

musicJohann Sebastian Bach, the Brandenburg concertos, BWV 1046–1051

costumesAn D’Huys

set and lightJan Versweyveld

dramaturgyJan Vandenhouwe

soundAlban Moraud, Aude Besnard

announcements Lav Crnčević

dogAyla 3000

understudies danceAnika Edström Kawaji, Bilal El Had, José Paulo dos Santos, Lav Crnčević

artistic assistant Femke Gyselinck

artistic coordination and planningAnne Van Aerschot

musical adviceKees van Houten

assistants musical analysisEkachai Maskulrat, Juan María Braceras

assistants set and light design François Thouret, Pascal Leboucq

costumes coordinatorHeide Vanderieck

sewing Charles Gisèle, Ester Manas, Maria Eva Rodrigues-Reyes, Viviane Coubergs

wardrobeElla De Vos

technical directorJoris De Bolle

technicians Bram Geldhof, Marlies Jacques,Michael Smets, Sari-Lynn Kerkhofs

created with and danced byBoštjan Antončič, José Paolo Dos Santos, Carlos Garbin, Frank Gizycki, Marie Goudot, Robin Haghi, Cynthia Loemij,Mark Lorimer, Michaël Pomero, Jason Respilieux, Igor Shyshko, Luka Švajda, Jakub Truszkowski, Thomas Vantuycom, Samantha van Wissen, Sandy Williams,Sue Yeon Youn

B’Rock OrchestraviolinAmandine Beyer (solo), David Wish,Jivka KaltchevaviolaLuc Gysbregts, Manuela Bucher,Marta PáramocelloFrédéric Baldassare, Julien Barre,Rebecca Rosenviola da gambaFrédéric Baldassare, Julien Barredouble bass and violoneTom Devaere traversoManuel GranatierooboeAntoine Torunczyk, Jon Olaberria,Stefaan Verdegembassoon Benny AghassitrumpetBruno FernandeshornBart Aerbeydt, Mark De MerlierrecorderBart Coen, Benny Aghassi harpsichordAndreas Kuppers

productionRosas

coproduction B’Rock Orchestra, Volksbuhne (Berlin), La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussels), Opéra de Lille, Opéra National de Paris, Sadler’s Wells (London), Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Concertgebouw (Bruges), Holland Festival (Amsterdam)

special thanks toGli Incogniti, Inge Grognard, Ayla 3000, Sandy Williams

This production was realized with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, in collaborationwith Casa Kafka Pictures Tax Shelterempowered by Belfius.Rosas is supported by the Flemish Community and by the BNP Paribas Foundation.

world premiere12 September 2018Volksbuhne (Berlin)

websitesAnne Teresa De Keersmaeker & RosasB’Rock OrchestraAmandine Beyer

an unreserved longing for harmony

Johann Sebastian Bach’s music has made regular appearances in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s oeuvre. The Six Brandenburg Concertos marked her fifth performance to the music of the German baroque composer. Yet it was only in 1993, twelve years after her first choreography Violin Phase, that she began to work with Bach’s own music in the performance Toccata.

Interview by Jan Vandenhouwe

JV: Why did it take you so long to finally take up the task of dancing Bach?

ATDK: ‘While developing the choreography to Steve Reich’s Violin Phase in the early eighties I always had a recording of one of the Brandenburg Concertos playing in the background. Bach’s musi-cal oeuvre has always been a guiding light for me from the very beginning of my career. However, I felt that at the time I wasn’t ready yet to really take on its complexity and abundance, and

transpose it into dance. The deeper I’ve managed to penetrate the structure of Bach’s music these past years, the more Bach’s absolute genius has revealed itself to me.’

What makes his music so unique to you?

‘Bach always added the small subscript ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ (‘Glory to God alone’) to his scores. Clearly, his music does aspire to be a re-flection of the divine order visible in the universe – it expresses an unreserved longing for harmony. It is also characterised as a kind of radiating clarity, in both its larger form and the details. I expe-rience it as architecture in motion, organised both along the hori-zontal axes of the counterpoint and the vertical axes of harmony. All of the separate voices in his music can be easily discerned and can stand as a composition of their own. At the same time, Bach’s voices also leave each other space. Every voice is singular and unique, but Bach always casts it in terms relative to the other voices. He was extremely inventive when applying rules and then breaking them instantaneously. In the Brandenburg concertos, for instance, he uses the common ritornello form of the baroque concerto to particularly great effect by alternating the tutti pas-sages – which contain the thematic base materials of a part (the ‘ritornello’) – with passages better suited to soloists, in which the music is largely new (called ‘episodes’). In Bach’s music, one always feels as if it’s either an ordered chaos or a chaotic order that rules

the day. His music never sounds forced or contrived, of course, but always natural and thoroughly, immensely human. It seems as if this cosmic order is part of the genetic code of Bach’s mind.’

Is that the reason you think it particularly suitable for dance?

‘In Bach’s music, one recognises experiences buried in the mem-ory of every individual human body: joy, rage, comfort, disdain, revenge, pity, pleasure, pain, melancholy, ecstasy … But, above all, everything in Bach’s music is about communication. Like no other composer, he understood the rules of classical rhetoric. How to persuade? How does one keep one’s discourse enticing? How to express opposites? Here, too, Bach is a master in deviating from the rules so familiar to him. His music is not only continuous-ly moving emotionally though; it is also physically moving. And that’s why we find it so easy to dance to. Pieces like the cello suites or the partitas for violin or harpsichord consist of a succession of various baroque dances: allemandes, sarabands, minuets, gigues, etc. But also parts of the Brandenburg concertos or certain cho-rals and arias from the St Matthew Passion or the cantatas are geared to dance forms.’

Last year you staged Mitten wir im Leben sind, a choreogra-phy to Bachs’ six cello suites, music that he wrote between 1717 and 1723 when, just like the Brandenburg concertos, he served as Kapellmeister at the court of Köthen. Should we consider Mitten wir im Leben sind a kind of preliminary study to The Six Brandenburg Concertos you’re currently working on?

‘Both cycles indeed trace their roots to the same period of Bach’s life. It was a time in which he was able to compose instrumental music relatively worry-free and under excellent working condi-tions. At the same time, this was also a period that was marked by the death of his wife and several of his children. Perhaps, one could argue then, that the melancholy so prevalent in the cello suites bears witness to Bach’s increased awareness of his own mortality. In the eyes of a choreographer, however, the difference between the mostly single-line cello suites and the Brandenburg concertos is enormous. From a purely practical point of view, in a large-scale group choreography like The Six Brandenburg Concertos there is a far greater need for ‘direct traffic’. In terms of musical substance, however, there are also major differences. Whereas the cello suites are largely melancholic and intimate in nature, I tend to associate the Brandenburg concertos mostly with a sense of vitality and liveliness. In some of the fast-paced sections – often characterised by an uninterrupted repetition of

small rhythmic units – it seems as if the musical score was already playing before the striking of the first note, and will continue after the final note with the volume turned down. Bach’s music then, seems like a minor morsel of infinity to which we can tune in with our ears for only a brief amount of time. In the choreography to the six cello suites, the notion of gravity played a big part – as a dancer, I associate the Brandenburg concertos much more with an ascending motion of opening spirals.’

How do you approach the task of choreographing the concertos practically?

‘The strict choreographic systems I applied to performances like Vortex Temporum or En Atendant – in which I linked one musical voice or instrument to a single dancer – are not readily applicable to a large-scale cycle like the Brandenburg concertos. In short, I had to come up with a new system. Just like Bach in composing, I have to impose rules on myself which over time I can break. At the foundation of the choreography, as always, is a geometric floor plan that is composed of circles, straight lines, pentagrams and spirals. Whereas in a performance like Drumming the choreogra-phy was tightly anchored to the spiral embedded in the geometric floor plan, the choreography of The Six Brandenburg Concertos

meanders much more freely through the pentagram I’m using as a base figure. Measure by measure we try to compensate Bach’s musical counterpoint with a choreographic counterpoint. It is certainly an enormous challenge to match the logic of the dance vocabulary with that of the music. The use of space and perspec-tive is essential here. What counts as foreground and what counts as background? What is visible and what isn’t? What can one hear at the forefront of Bach’s music and how does that translate into a visible phenomenon? In the end, the dance has to remain be an autonomous partner with regards to the music and never become enslaved or entranced by it.’

How does the structure of Bach’s six-concert cycle shape the course of your performance?

‘Like so many of Bach’s works, the six Brandenburg concertos form an ordered universe in themselves. One can easily detect a certain harmony and hierarchy, for example, between the different voices. In the second, fourth and fifth concert, Bach places a small group of soloists opposite the rest of the group, the so-called ripieno. Here, too, he very much enjoys diverging from existing rules. An instrument like the harpsichord – traditionally cast in a submissive role – is suddenly elevated by Bach to the role of principal soloist in the fifth concerto. Later, he includes an im-mense solo cadenza for that very harpsichord. The first concerto, probably compiled from music of previously composed canta-tas, is the only concerto that doesn’t consist of three but of four parts. It occasionally has the character of a suite for orchestra, which may be why Bach placed it at the beginning of the cycle. With its festive clarion of trumpets, the first part originated from the opening of Bach’s so-called ‘hunting cantata’. The third and the sixth concerto, in turn, are written exclusively for strings. The hierarchy erected between soloist and group (ripieno) seems to collapse at this point.’

How do you translate this into choreographic writing?

‘In my own choreographic design, I wanted to pay close attention to the overarching form of Bach’s cycle. In the first part of the first concerto, I let the entire group of dancers walk the bass line in unisono, following the principle of my walking is my dancing – a theme which I’d already explored in previous performances. Also in Mitten wir im Leben sind, I let the dancers literally walk some parts of the bass line that carries the course of the mu-sic, making it visible: one note, one step. In the first part of the first Brandenburg concertos, all dancers walk in a straight line,

backwards or forwards, from a frontal perspective. And by using a very simple set of musical canons, I then introduce the first visual counterpoint a while later. Not only does it allow for a better pres-entation of the group as a whole; it also gives space to a different group of instruments: the two French horns, the violino piccolo, the oboes, etc. In the slow section of the first concerto I then first introduce the three-dimensional dancing material on which the entire performance is based. In other words, the choreography of the first concerto lays out, as it were, the ingredients we will be us-ing to compose the entirety of the piece. In the second, fourth and fifth concerto, I then attempt to come up with a visual representa-tion of the standard concerto form with its typical interplay of soloists, ripieno and bass line. Equally, we offer a depiction of the separate structure of the third concerto consisting of three violins, three violas, three cellos and basso continuo.’

‘Spurred on by the famous anapest rhythm (short-short-long), which dominates the entire first section, the principle of my walk-ing is my dancing then changes into the more audacious princi-ple of my running is my dancing. The second allegro of the third concerto is one of those parts that seemingly offers that morsel of infinity. Again, the music seems to share an earlier start than the first note itself and to continue after the last note is played. At this point, our intention was to unleash a true visual whirlwind, a vortex bending the straight lines from previous sections into spirals and circles which had to, at least symbolically, stand for a notion of the infinite.’

ZigZag through BaCh

by Wannes Gyselinck

The Six Brandenburg Concertos stem from a double desire on be-half of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker: firstly, to do something with a large group of dancers; secondly, to take the next step in her ongoing pas de deux with Bach. After her interpretation of Bach’s cello suites in Mitten wir im Leben sind – with an intimate setting, performed by a small ensemble, bathing in a dark and contem-plative atmosphere – De Keersmaeker went for the Brandenburg concertos this time around: triumphant, luminous, grand, joy-ous. ‘This is youthful music, its energy is up and away,’ relates De Keersmaeker.

As a composer, Bach was unprecedented in his experimenta-tion with the relationship between the ripieno – the accepted term for a supporting orchestra – and the soloist, an emblem for the interaction between group and individual, foreground and background. De Keersmaeker again managed to draft a choreo-graphy tailored to Bach’s musical score with a degree of measure

by measure precision. But no matter how closely she insists on following the music, the translational battle is never a question of literal transposition. One could call it a meeting at counterpoint between the logic of dance and the logic of music, between the opulence of baroque and a contemporary – and yet so atypical for our times – attempt at an extremely exacting form of beauty. Exacting, since it is characterized by a lack for the classical urge to please prevalent in performance art, and by the knowledge that freedom only flourishes in the interstices of a rule-bound, rigorous system.

For a total of five times now, De Keersmaeker has carried out cho-reographic research into and via Bach. Still, it should come as no surprise that she hasn’t yet grown weary of the German composer who was known for his propensity to be as strict as he was frivo-lous. Bach’s music combines an eminently danceable character – much of his music is based on old forms of dance – with a high degree of abstraction. Bach turns a theme consisting of four notes into a musical cathedral, deploying processes of variation, inver-sion, development. From simplicity to complexity, balancing be-tween order and chaos. It compares to how Steve Reich extracts a complex rhythmic and harmonic counterpoint from a simple musical riff like for instance in Violin Phase (footnote: in the pro-cess of making her choreography of Violin Phase, De Keersmaeker had the fifth Brandenburg concerto on repeat). This approach that was also characteristic of De Keersmaeker’s previous work: clear rules, basic geometric forms and simple movement material as a foundation to arrive at a complex organisation of bodies in time and space.

‘We were looking for material that fits both men and women, with the clarity, detail and a controlled refinement I see in Bach as well. But this type of material can only flourish when buttressed by a strong and clear-cut architecture. This is necessary to arrive at that articulate counterpoint to such a complex score, involv-ing such a large group of dancers. It is far from easy to organise such a large troupe of people in space without it turning into a burdensome task. The geometric axes stipulating the dancers’ vertical and horizontal movements, the question of what counts as foreground and background – all of that has to be enunciated with extreme clarity. This is similar to Bach’s music, in fact: his lan-guage is always set out clearly in broad lines, but is very refined and rich in the detail.’ Once again, De Keersmaeker set out from a geometric floor plan – spiralling pentagrams – with three basic geometric objects superimposed on that same plan: a straight line (a row), a weaving motion (the zigzag), and the circle.

The row (my walking is my dancing)Lined up and facing the audience, the sixteen dancers of The Six Brandenburg Concertos walk the bass line of the first of the Brandenburg concertos. The music is joyous and triumphant, the (unusual) use of the natural horns suggests aristocratic hunting scenes. Walking can be a war dance, too, certainly when sixteen dancers do so frontally and synchronously (think Riverdance).For this task, De Keersmaeker takes considerable time. While walk-ing, the dancers introduce their key material: their bodies. They use the principle my walking is my dancing to enact it. The result is that the activity of dancing undergoes a reduction to what may be the most fundamental pattern inherent to human beings, which, from an evolutionary perspective, also turned them into human beings in the first place: walking erect. 

From a logistical standpoint, this walking must take time: sixteen dancers are engaged in the same movement and are presup-posed to thereby reveal their individuality. Our gait captures us as our handwriting does: the movements not included in the chore-ography, that which is not described in the score, slightly leaning forward, a kink in the left knee, the right wrist touching the hip, a shoulder accentuating the movement just a little more markedly. Call them unintentional ornaments, inadvertent variations. They are superfluous movements – not strictly necessary for the ac-complishing of the ultimate goal: achieving locomotion – but de-

fine the specific ‘sonority’ of every body and are indispensable for a human being to credibly do what we call walking. Indispensable because they define the walker: ‘This is how I walk, this is my ver-sion of what people do when they walk.’

The zigzag (deliberation without purpose)A multitude is always in need of limitation, just as a certain amount of mass calls for a gravitational pull. Bach’s music often has the allure of a musical puzzle he set himself – where lies my freedom within this limited framework set by a few very rigid rules? De Keersmaeker similarly looks for freedom within the confines of rigorous frameworks. On top of the self-imposed limitation in the use of space achieved through a limited selection of geomet-ric shapes and a strict floor plan, De Keersmaeker applies a few organising principles alien to music which are pleasantly disrup-tive of too literal a translation of music into movement. Similar to Golden Hours, where Shakespeare’s As You Like It provided subtext to the movements, this time she confronted the logic of Bach’s music with the L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, a television programme in which the French philosopher improvises to an abecedary proposed by Claire Parnet: from ‘a’ for animal and ‘j’ for joy to ‘t’ for tennis and ‘z’ for zigzag. These terms subsequently provide the inspiration for the gestures the dancers not so much act out but touch upon. They are flirting, as it were, with the boundary of not quite acting it out and make the dance concrete without adding meaning too literally. The letter ‘d’ – desire – gave rise to a languorous pose, much like in the ecstatic Spanish baroque paintings by El Greco or Zurbaran, but it draws just shy of being concrete enough to invite interpretation. ‘What it does do is add punctuation and rhythm,’ relates De Keersmaeker. ‘And a sense of intent and precision.’ This attention to refinement and ornamentation – also emphatically present in Bach’s work – pro-vides eloquence without actually saying anything concrete. It invites the audience to regard the movement of the dancer from outside, from the moving body to the intention that triggered the movement in the first place. The body shows itself as something that is not only body but also possesses another component, a component that we, in a now dispensed myth, would refer to as ‘spirit’. It gives a sense of deliberation, even though it lacks pur-pose.

The twenty-five letters/poses are gradually dispersed throughout the various concertos and parts within the concertos to add to the development of the piece. This is always done in zigzagging, weaving patterns, both along a straight line and on the edge of an imaginary circle.

‘Bach possesses a formalism and a high degree of abstraction’, De Keersmaeker explains, ‘he likes to play around with numerolo-gy. But the thing that makes his music so transcendent and pop-ular at the same, is the way he combines this numerology with clear narratives and recognisable affects. Bach’s music is a clearly developed argument and, at the same time, it is filled to the brim with a sort of mysterious code language. Deleuze’s abecedary is an internal tool – you are not expected to pick up on this. Just as Bach hid mathematical figures in his music, we also have our se-cret language. They are private jests that give our dances colour and direction.’ 

The circle (completion)We have come full circle. As De Keersmaeker states: ‘A line in space always has a turning point. That turn-around-point at the end of a line injects rhythm into movement precisely due to its finite nature. As a figure, the circle knows of no such quality, since, in principle, its qualities are unending. It may very well be the most successful attempt to make as abstract as infinity into some-thing concrete. Bach also manages to evoke this sense of infinity in his Brandenburg concertos. The piece’s recurring tempos instil a kind of sustained pulse in the whole score, present throughout the whole collection. It was there before the performance started and will continue – inaudibly – afterwards. It is as though for a brief moment you manage to tap into a vibration that has been going on forever and will yet never cease. On the one hand, the music is carried by its rhetorical qualities, an aspect that lends it its elo-quence, on the other hand, one could also call it an explicit chant of infinity.’

‘What is spirituality?’ This is the question André Comte-Sponville asks himself in his booklet The Spirit of Atheism. Introduction to Spirituality without God. His answer: spirituality rests on our finite relationship with the infinite, our temporary experience of the eternal, our relative access to the absolute. People may be marked by their ability to walk erect, but this ability is much more than a mere technical feat. Humankind decided to straighten its vertebra, and directed its gaze upward. And in that upward gaze lies a question about the condition humaine: why are we as humans so tragically (or comically, everything depending on per-spective here) wedged between the finite and infinite, the animal and the deity? What are we supposed to do with such a tragic disjunction? How are we to comprehend the incomprehensible, imagine the unimaginable?

But we were completing the circle, so let us return to the question of walking. As a technical side note, we might note the horizontal movement of the vertical spine, which shifts the centre of gravity by leaning forward, causing the equilibrium of stasis to be disrupt-ed. It thereby requires the search for a new, temporarily reinstated equilibrium, in a forwardly propelling motion which immediately turns out to be a pivot point for the next state of imbalance. In this purview, walking seems to nothing less than a constantly con-trolled state of failing to fall over. Or: nothing seems more difficult than walking.

This is probably what dancers and in particular choreographers are engaged in: bringing a movement to halt, perhaps only tem-porarily, inverting and restyling the familiar arsenal of movements available, and thereby endowing them with special significance in the process. In short, the organisation of a new access to our own physicality, as well as new modes in which this physicality can be expressed through specific movements.

In his essay Federer: Both Flesh and Not, which treats Federer’s own particular mode of playing tennis, the American essayist David Foster Wallace pauses at the beauty of the player’s move-ments, which he refers to as a kind of ‘kinetic beauty’. ‘What it seems to have to do with, really,’ he notes, ‘is human being’s reconciliation of having a body.’ Perhaps that is what dance does as well: it styles our movements and physicality, maybe rendering it alien, again, but also reigniting the miracle of having a body in the first place.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Mechelen, 1960) debuted in 1980 with Asch, her first choreographic work, and established her reputation two years later with Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich. Since then De Keersmaeker has established herself as one of the most progressive, influential and celebrated artists of contemporary dance. In 1983 she created the breakthrough work Rosas danst Rosas, at the same time establishing the dance company Rosas. From the very start, her choreography was grounded in a rigorous exploration of the relation-ship between dance and music, as seen in her work Bartók/Mikrokosmos (1987) and Achterland (1990). From 1992 to 2007 De Keersmaeker was choreographer in residence at the Brussels Opera House De Munt/La Monnaie. In 1995, in collaboration with this establishment, she founded an international school for contemporary dance, the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S). In the course of her career she has created an exten-

sive performance oeuvre, in which the musical structures of various traditions are paired with the strict rules and formal principles of geometry, mathematics, the natural world and social structures. The results provide a unique perspective on the body’s articulation in space and time. The dance company Rosas has appeared several times at the Holland Festival, most recently with the impressive Vortex Temporum (2014), based on Gérard Grisey’s eponymous spectralist work. Bach’s sonatas and fugues were central to De Keersmaeker’s Toccata (1993), which also appeared at the Holland Festival. Now, in The Six Brandenburg Concertos, De Keersmaeker returns to an early enthu-siasm, taking Bach’s concerti grossi as her starting point.

Amandine Beyer (Aix-en-Provence, 1974) started her musical career at the age of four. Although her first instrument was the recorder, she soon discovered the violin. She was admitted to the prestig-

aBout the artists

ious Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Paris when she was 15, writing her master’s dissertation on the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen during her time there. After graduating in musicology in 1996, she moved to Basel, Switzerland for advanced study at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, with the Swiss conductor and violinist Chiara Banchini. In 1998 she and her ensemble L’Assemblée des Honnestes Curieux won the Premio Bonporti and the Special Jury Prize at the International Baroque Violin Competition, Rovereto. Beyer is now a renowned interpreter of the baroque violin repertoire. Since 2000 she has performed as a soloist at many international festivals and concert halls. Her recording of Bach’s Sonatas & Partitas (2012), with her own ensemble Gli Incogniti, received great critical acclaim. Like the choreographers and dancers Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker and Boris Charmatz she is captivated by the music of Bach. In 2013 she played the solo violin part for De Keersmaeker’s and Charmatz’s intimate production Partita 2. In addition to working with her own ensemble, Beyer is a member of various other groups, including Les Cornets Noirs. Additionally, she appears regularly on stage in duo performances with Pierre Hantai, Kristian Bezuidenhout and Laurence Beyer. Her other passion is teaching. She teaches courses in the Faculty of Music, Arts and Performing Arts of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal, and holds worldwide masterclasses. Since 2010 she has taught the baroque violin at her former institute, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel. Her performance in The Six Brandenburg Concertos is her debut at the Holland Festival.

B’Rock Orchestra was founded in Ghent in 2005. The orchestra combines classical instruments with 21st-century ideas and

timeless joy, striving for innovation and re-newal in the world of Early Music. The inter-national musicians who form the orchestra are known for their openness of spirit and flexibility, both in repertoire and styles of performance. They bring their intuitive, inquisitive and impact-driven approach to a wide range of projects, creating ‘orches-tral theatre’ from the fertile encounter of early and contemporary music. Special attention is paid to the creation of new music, but early music in combination with theatre, the visual arts and/or video is also a vital part of their artistic DNA. They draw on four centuries of musical history, and use the instruments suited to each period. The ensemble has no permanent

conductor, but regularly collaborates with leading guest conductors and soloists such as René Jacobs, Ivor Bolton, Jérémie Rhorer, Alexander Melnikov, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Bejun Mehta and others. B’Rock Orchestra also works with the choirs of De Munt/La Monnaie and Muziektheater Transparant,  and is associated with deSingel Arts Campus, Antwerp and the Opéra de Normandie Rouen. The ensem-ble’s mission is to bring the purest musical experiences to the broadest possible audience. B’Rock Orchestra has played at various prestigious venues and festi-vals, such as the Theater an der Wien, the Philharmonie de Paris, Bozar Music in Brussels, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw,

the BBC Proms, the Klarafestival, the Concertgebouw Brugge, the Kölner Philharmonie, L’Auditori in Barcelona,the Wiener Festwochen, the Ruhrtriennale and the Mozartwoche in Salzburg.B’Rock Orchestra previously appeared at the Holland Festival in productions of theopera Orlando (2014) and Haydn’soratorio Die Schöpfung (2016).

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hartsvriendenR.F. van den Bergh, Kommer and Josien Damen, Sabine van Delft-Vroom, J. Fleury, V. Halberstadt, Astrid Helstone and Diederik Burgersdijk, Nienke van den Hoek and Alexander Ribbink, Isaäc and Francien Kalisvaart, Giovanna Kampouri Monnas, Luuk H. Karsten, Kristine Kohlstrand, Joost and Marcelle Kuiper, Cees Lafeber, Emma Moloney, Sijbolt Noorda and Mieke van der Weij, Ben Noteboom, Robert Jan and Mélanie van Ogtrop-Quintus, Jeroen Ouwehand, Marsha Plotnitsky, Anthony and Melanie Ruys, Rob van Schaik and Wijnanda Rutten, Ingeborg Snelleman and Arie Vreugdenhil, Coen Teulings and Salomé Bentinck, Patty Voorsmit, Hans Wolfert and Marijke Brinkman

Hartsvrienden who wish to remain anonymous.

beschermersM. Appeldoorn, Lodewijk Baljon and Ineke Hellingman, Maarten Biermans and Helena Verhagen, S. Brada, Frans and Dorry Cladder-van Haersolte, J. Docter and E. van Luijk, Huub A. Doek, L. Dommering-van Rongen, E. Granpré Moliere, M. Grotenhuis,S. Haringa, B. Heijse and A.M. Heijse-Verbeek, J. Houwert, W. andJ. Jansen-Straver, R. Katwijk, R. Kupers and H. van Eeghen, Monique Laenen and Titus Darley, A. van der Linden-Taverne, F. Mulder, Adriaan and Glenda Nuhn-Morris, G. van Oenen, Marinus Pannevis and Caroline Polak, H. Pinkster, Pim and Antoinette Polak, H. Sauerwein, Lisette Schuitemaker and Jos van Merendonk, C.W.M. Schunck, A.N. Stoop and S. Hazelhoff, Wolbert and Barbara Vroom, P. Wakkie, Martine Willekens, O.L.O. and Tineke de Witt Wijnen-Jansen Schoonhoven

Beschermers who wish to remain anonymous.

begunstigersB. Amesz, A. van de Beek en S. van Basten Batenburg, Ellen Birnie, Co Bleeker*, Jasper Bode, K. Bodon, Jan Bouws, E. Bracht, W.L.J. Bröcker, F. van den Broek, G. Bromberger, D. de Bruijn, G. van Capelleveen, P.M. Op de Coul, M. Daamen, J. Dekker, M. Doorman, Sylvia Dornseiffer, Chr. van Eeghen*, Ch. Engeler*, E.L. Eshuis*, Sandra Geisler, Susan Gloudemans, E. de Graaff Van Meeteren,F. Grimmelikhuizen D. Grobbe, Annelies Heidstra and Renze Hasper J. Hennephof, G. van Heteren, L. van Heteren, S. Hodes, J. Hopman*, J. Houtman, E. Hummelen, Wendy van Ierschot, Yolanda Jansen, P. Jochems, Jan de Kater, Ytha Kempkes,J. Keukens, E. Kocken, Bas Köhler, A. Ladan, M. Le Poole,M. Leenaers, K. Leering, M. Levenbach, T. Liefaard, A. Ligeon,T. Lodder, R. Mackenzie, D. van der Meer, E. van der Meer-Blok,A. de Meijere, E. Merkx, Jaap Mulders, H. Nagtegaal, La Nube, Kay Bing Oen*, E. Overkamp and A. Verhoog, P. Price, F. Racké,H. Ramaker, J. Rammeloo, Wessel Reinink, M. Roozen,A. Schneider, H. Schnitzler, G. Scholten, Joanne Schouten,R.W. Siemers and I. Janssen, P. Smit, G. Smits, A. Sonnen,W. Sorgdrager and F. Lekkerkerker, K. Spanjer, Reinout Steenhuizen, Farid Tabarki, P.-M. H.-L. Tegelaar, C. Teulings,H. Tjeenk Willink, A. Tjoa, M. Tjoe-Nij, Y. Tomberg, Kurt Tschenett en Sasha Brunsmann, H. van der Veen, M.T.F. Vencken, A. van Vliet, R. Vogelenzang, M.M. de Vos van Steenwijk, A. Wertheim,M. Witter, M. van Wulfften Palthe, M. Yazdanbakhsh, P. van der Zant, M.J. Zomer, P. van Zwieten and N. Aarnink

Begunstigers who wish to remain anonymous.

* extra contribution

jonge begunstigersHelene Bakker, Aram Balian, Ilonka van den Bercken, Femke Blokhuis, Quirijn Bongaerts, Jonne ter Braak, Dirk Dekker, Matthijs Geneste, Hagar Heijmans, Ric van Holthe tot Echten, Brendon Humble, Jort van Jaarsveld, Aron Kovacs, Judith Lekkerkerker, Gustavo López, Pieter van der Meché, Frans Muller, Boris van Overbeeke, Jill Pisters, Menzo Reinders, Peter Ruys, Guus Schaepman, Eerke Steller, David van Traa, Rosanne Thesing en Melle Kromhout, Frank Uffen, Frank Verschoor, Tristen Vreugdenhil, Lonneke van der Waa.

Jonge Begunstigers who wish to remain anonymous.

liefhebbersAll 629 Liefhebbers.

Join usThe Holland Festival needs your support. As Friend you contribute to the ongoing success and growth of the festival.

Liefhebber - from € 55 annuallyYou will have access to advance ticket sales and get discounts on tickets.

Begunstiger - from € 250 annually (or € 21 per month)Your contribution goes directly to the Holland Festival’s international programming. As a Begunstiger, you have aright to free tickets and other attractive privileges.

Jonge Begunstiger (<42) - from € 250 annually (or € 21 per month)Receive the same privileges as the Begunstigers and partici-pate in a special programme with activities that bring you closer to the makers of the festival and where you meet other Jonge Begunstigers.

Beschermer - from € 1.500 annually (or € 125 per month)As thanks for your considerable contribution to the Holland Festival’s international programming, you receive an invitation to the opening performance and exclusive gatherings in addition to free tickets and other privileges.

Hartsvriend - from € 5.000 annually We invite Holland Festival Hartsvrienden to become more closely acquainted with the makers of the Festival and meet like-minded people and guests.

Donations to the festival are tax-deductibleSince January 2012 a special tax law is in effect which makes it more advantageous to make charitable donations. Called the ‘Geefwet’, this law allows you to claim your deductions to cultural organizations with ANBI status with an additional 25% for tax ben-efits (a total of 125%). The Holland Festival has such an ANBI status. The fiscal advantage applies to donations that total a maximum of € 5.000 annually. If you donate more than € 5.000 to regis-tered charities, you can deduct the remaining amount for the reg-ular percentage (100%). The advantages of the Geefwet apply to all taxpayers (private parties and businesses) and are applicable to both individual and periodical gifts.

Advantages of a periodical gift Restrictions apply to deductions for individual gifts. Individual gifts are tax-deductible when the total amount of gifts given in one year surpasses 1% of your income, with a minimum of € 60. The amount given above the minimum threshold is tax-deducti-ble. The maximum deductible amount is 10% of your threshold in-come. There are fiscal benefits for periodical gifts with an annuity construction for five years and upwards. If you choose to support the Holland Festival for a minimum of five years, your gift will be fully tax-deductible.

If you would like to join us, go to our website hollandfestival.nl (Support HF) for more information or call Liza Meulenbroek for an informal talk without obligations: +31(0)20 – 788 21 20.

Leave a legacy or a bequest The Holland Festival believes that live, performing art can contrib-ute to a better world. Art expands the viewer’s horizon. It requires effort from the audience: sitting still, turning off phones and surrendering to the artwork. This investment and concentration offers a different perspective – a look at other people’s lives and their choices – which can be surprising, shocking or moving the viewer.

For over 71 years the festival has been playing a leading role in the introduction of new names to a large audience. It invests in artis-tic venture capital, which produces unforgettable eye-opening and exciting experiences.

Remembering the Holland Festival by leaving a gift in your will, no matter what size, allows the festival to build and develop its work for future generations. We are happy to discuss the possibilities with you. For more information, please contact Liza Meulenbroek on +31(0)20 – 788 21 20 or liza.meulenbroek@hollandfestival.nl.

Holland FestivalPiet Heinkade 51019 BR Amsterdamtel. +31 (0)20 – 788 21 00info@hollandfestival.nlwww.hollandfestival.nl

textWannes GyselinckJan VandenhouweVincent Kouters

text editorKaren Welling

translationRosas design thonik

lay-out Mark Drillich, Erna Theys

photography© Anne van Aerschot, Hugo Glendinningportrait Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker © Hugo Glendinningportrait Amandine Beyer © Francois Sechetportrait B’Rock Orchestra © Mirmam Devriendt

© Holland Festival, 2019 No part of this publication may be reproduced and/or published by any means whatsoever without the prior written permission of the Holland Festival.

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