The music season in Arnhem’s Musis Sacrum in 2013/14

English: Arnhem – Musis Sacrum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The coming music season in Arnhem’s Musis Sacrum offers a few interesting and attractive performances worth remembering while making decisions to come here for music from the autumn of 2013.

The season is usually impressed by the ‘Artist in residence’, and this is going to be this year as well with the noted Russian-born pianist Dmitri Alexeev. His first concert takes place on 4th October, when he plays various pieces by Schumann, and transcriptions by Liszt. On 20th November, he accompanies baritone Thomas Oliemans, who sings Brahms Liederen op.32, Mahler’s Wunderhorn Liederen, and several songs by Medtner and Rachmaninov.

D. Alexeev

In 2014, Dmitri Alexeev performs with the world-famous Borodin quartet on 21 January. On that evening, after a string-quartet by Mozart, they perform two piano-quintets by Schumann and Dvorak respectively. This concert may prove to be the highlight of the season in Arnhem.

Also expected to be outstanding is his performance of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto in c-minor with Het Gelders Orkest on 8th February, when Shostakovich’ 6th symphony is also on the programme. At his last concert, Alexeev pairs up with Nikolai Demidenko to perform pieces for two pianos by Shostakovich and Gershwin.

G. Sokolov

Besides a concert by Homero Francesch on 18th December and by Barry Douglas on 14th February 2014, two more concerts make this piano season outstanding in Arnhem. On 26th March 2014, one of the most famous pianists of our time, member of the Beaux Arts Trio, Mennahem Pressler gives a concert of Kurtág and Schubert to commemorate his ninetieth birthday. The piano series concludes with a concert by another outstanding master, another Russian pianist, Grigory Sokolov. Though his program is not known yet, we can be absolutely sure of the outstanding quality of this concert as well.

The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra directed by Ton Koopman, on 29 january 2009, during La Folle Journée in Nantes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the Netherlands is to a large extent the land of ‘old music’, we can expect a number of notable concerts in music before romanticism. Händel’s Messiah is performed by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra on 7th December, with Ton Koopman as conductor. On February 7th, the English tenor Ian Bostridge gives a full concert of songs by John Dowland, in memory of the 450th birthday of the great English Reneissance composer.

The Nederlands Kamerkoor gives a concert of Josquin des Prez, Orlando de Lasso en Antoine Brummel on 18th February, but the biggest even is expected on 19th April, when Frans Brüggen‘s orchestra, the Orchestra of the 18th Century, and the Cappella Amsterdam performs Bach’s Johannes Passion. Our guess is, that tickets for this concert are already hard to buy, as information has been available locally for several weeks now.

Midori

There are two more event towards the end of the season that we would recommend to the conoisseur to consider listening to. On 21st May 2014, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta performs with the young Dutch talent, Simone Lamsma playing the violin solo in pieces by Berstein, Mahler and Beethoven, among others. To crown the season, the extraordinary Japanese violinist, Midori comes to Arnhem to play Brahms’ violin concerto with Het Gelders Orkest before the orchestra performs the first symphony of the great romantic master.

We wish great enjoyment to those who can listen to the coming concerts and would be very pleased if we received some reports about them.