Star-studded Anniversary features top artists

The Concertgebouw and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra celebrate their 125th anniversary together.

On 10 April 2013, the Concertgebouw and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will be teaming up to celebrate their joint 125th anniversary with a festive Star-studded Anniversary Concert. Three leading soloists will feature on the programme: baritone Thomas Hampson, pianist Lang Lang and our ‘very own’ star violinist Janine Jansen. Under the baton of Maestro Mariss Jansons and together with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, these top musicians will be performing a programme full of historic surprises.

The proceeds from the Star-studded Anniversary Concert, to which all the musicians and soloists involved are donating their services, will go towards the education programmes of both the orchestra and the hall.

The Star-studded Anniversary programme features Wagner’s Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which was also performed on the festive opening concert of the Concertgebouw on 11 April 1888. Other works include songs from Das Knaben Wunderhorn and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen by Mahler and the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. Both these composers conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra themselves on several occasions. It is with this anniversary celebration on 3 November that the orchestra is commemorating the fact that it gave its very first concert 125 years ago. A new work has also been commissioned for the occasion: Bob Zimmerman has composed a set of variations on the Dutch folk song ‘Komt vrienden in het ronden’ (Come, Friends, Gather Round). Musicians from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are joining forces for a performance of the Elégie from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings.

Many young professionals representing all the countries that the RCO is visiting on its 2013 World Tour will also be attending the concert given on this particular evening. Their attendance is made possible by the generosity of the orchestra’s sponsors.

Note to editors: For more information and/or graphics, please contact

the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: Anne Christin Erbe, by e-mail at a.c.erbe@concertgebouworkest.nl, or by telephone on +31 (0)20–3051060 or +31 (0)6–52462486.

Het Concertgebouw: Reinoud van Houten, by e-mail at r.vanhouten@concertgebouw.nl, or by telephone on +31 (0)20–5730478 or +31 (0)6–11596669.