Academy
The Academy at 25: a photo story
Fri, Oct 30, 2026
Last Thursday, 29 October, we celebrated the Academy of the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s 25th anniversary with a festive concert, performed by a once-in-a-lifetime jubilee orchestra. It was composed of musicians who have trained with us over the past 25 years: alumni of our Academy, plus all fourteen of this season’s participants and alumni of our summer youth orchestra Concertgebouw Orchestra Young. And they absolutely brought down the house!
Have a peek backstage and follow the evening’s performers from their preparations to the final bow and closing celebrations.
After a welcome from our managing director Dominik Winterling, there was a short video looking back on the past 25 years. During the closing credits, the players came onstage to wild applause, with our patron Queen Máxima in attendance: 79 musicians, from young players just starting out to seasoned professionals – including fourteen former participants who are members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, some of them for many years now.
Supporting young talent
Donations from individuals, foundations and sponsors help young musicians at the Academy develop into the leading musicians of tomorrow. Want to find out how you can contribute? concertgebouworkest.nl/support
Short film looking back on 25 years of the Academy
The jubilee orchestra also includes members of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Brussels Philharmonic and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria. Others play in ensembles like Pynarello, the Dudok Quartet and Britain’s Aurora Orchestra, or they’re enjoying careers as freelancers. Wherever they’re working, they are all hugely talented. And they were enormously looking forward to this concert.
Our talent development goes further than the instrumentalists: we also have training programmes for young conductors and composers. Our former (and first ever) associate conductor Aurel Dawidiuk conducted the first piece, Grieg’s famous First ‘Peer Gynt’ Suite.
Then our chief conductor designate Klaus Mäkelä took over, joined by clarinettist Carlos Ferreira and violist Santa Vižine: both of them former Academy participants, and both of them Concertgebouw Orchestra section leaders. Carlos and Santa played the solos in Bruch’s Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra – impassioned music full of yearning melodies in which the solo instruments sometimes blended together gloriously.
After the interval, Klaus Mäkelä led Saint-Saëns’ monumental ‘Organ Symphony’ with organ soloist… none other than Aurel Dawidiuk! Besides a great conductor, he’s also an accomplished organist. And the orchestra sounded like everyone had played together for years! But now they’re parting ways, returning to their own orchestras, ensembles and projects. Here’s to the next 25 years!
Support
The Academy is entirely made possible by the Foundation Concertgebouworkest, which receives donations from, among others, Ammodo Art, the Don Quixote Foundation, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Pieter Houbolt Fonds, Stichting TBI Fundatie, Zadelhoff Cultuur Fonds, Companions, Dutch Masters Foundation, Swiss Global Friends of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Business Club De Salon, and private donors including Commemorative Funds. Coloriginz provided the flowers for the evening.
Help support the Academy
Donations from individuals, foundations and sponsors help young musicians at the Academy become the leading musicians of tomorrow. Find out more about donations or gifts in wills at concertgebouworkest.nl/support or contact us.
