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Steve Reich and John Adams originally made their breakthrough with high-energy music full of shifting near-repetitions. They are still called minimalists, even though that name is no longer applicable – just listen to Adams’s Violin Concerto with its endless melodies. So we should not attempt to classify the brilliant and versatile Mathilde Wantenaar: tomorrow she will already have outgrown that classification.


conductor André de Ridder | violin Leila Josefowicz


Wantenaar Prélude à une nuit américaine (commission work, world premiere)

Adams Violin Concerto No. 1

Adams The Chairman Dances

Reich Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (Dutch premiere)


Fri 11 Oct 2019, 20:15

De Doelen, Rotterdam


Sat 12 Oct 2019, 20:15

TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht


Being creative on demand? That's impossible, you would think. Yet it is the reality for composers and artists who work on commission. Mathilde Wantenaar (1993) therefore got acute choice stress when the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra asked her for a new piece. She was just working on a commission from De Nationale Opera. 'I felt like a rabbit in the headlights, totally paralysed. But I just couldn't turn down such a beautiful offer.' On 11 October, Prélude à une nuit américaine will premiere in Rotterdam, a day later it will be heard in the AVROTROSVrijdagconcert in Utrecht.




The lonely mole decides to write a song to cheer up the moon. The grasshopper rehearses with his orchestra until they have completely mastered the song, and one night they give a beautiful concert. But why does the moon look so sad afterwards...?


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