Bijlmer Klassiek kicks off new concert season with Surinamese Romanticism
Unique collaboration between Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Bijlmer Parktheater starts 2023-24 season
In the Bijlmer Klassiek concert series, music styles merge seamlessly and are mixed with other performing arts. This special collaboration between the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Bijlmer Parktheater in Amsterdam Zuidoost (in the South-East of the city) is entering its second season. Members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra collaborate with musicians, dancers, actors and writers from many different styles, genres and backgrounds. The first series of five concerts, in the 2022-23 season, was a great success and drew full houses.
The new series of five concerts will start on Sunday 1 October at 11 a.m. with Surinamese Romanticism: pianist Roderigo Robles de Medina and four string players from the orchestra will perform music by composers from Surinam, and Dutch composers with a Surinamese background. A concert full of hidden pearls that deserve to be heard, such as the compelling String Quartet by Theodor Neumann-Cordua (b. Paramaribo 1860 – d. Caracas 1911), the Elegy for cello and piano by Johan Victor Dahlberg (b. Paramaribo 1915 – d. Ubbergen 1946), and the Mazurka for piano solo by Johannes Nicolaas Helstone (b. Berg en Dal 1853 – d. Paramaribo 1927). There is also new music: Martin Lo-A-Njoe‘s Mystique for violin and piano.
The next Bijlmer Klassiek concerts will be taking place on 3 December, 3 February, 7 April and 7 June and will include collaborations with multi-instrumentalists Stanley Clémentina and Marlon 'Mc Jetfly' Francis, jazz drummer Eddy Veldman and keyboardist Sophie Anglionin.
By embracing Bijlmer Klassiek in 2022, the Concertgebouw Orchestra took over from its violist Michael Gieler, who organized the series for ten years with the Bijlmer Parktheater.
About the Bijlmer Parktheater
At the Bijlmer Parktheater new stories are developed, artists are given free rein to develop artistically, and the audience feels at home. The lively, intimate and welcoming theater boasts a unique programme giving space to different identities, traditions, cultures and cultural expressions and where people find meaning in diversity.