Press release Emphasis on female conductors and composers The Royal Concertgebouw presents its programme for the 2018-2019 season Amsterdam, 26th February 2018 – For its programme for the 2018-2019 season, The Royal Concertgebouw has decided to put an emphasis on female conductors and composers. Together with the LUDWIG music collective, Barbara Hannigan is set to return to conduct her first opera, The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky. For her Royal Concertgebouw debut, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla will be bringing with her the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, of which she is chief conductor. Susanna Mälkki will also be heading her ‘very own’ Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. It will also be the first time that The Royal Concertgebouw welcomes a female composer in residence, Tansy Davies, from Great Britain. She will reside in Amsterdam for a few months to, among other things, compose new works for Asko|Schönberg. In the Rising Stars series, the audience will hear commissioned works by Roxanna Panufnik and Camille Pépin, with attention also being paid to female composers such as Alma Mahler, Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn. The Italian composer and violinist Alba Rosa Viëtor will take centre stage during the one-day festival Alba Rosa Viva!. Her works will be supported by the works of Henriëtte Bosmans, Cécile Chaminade and Rosy Wertheim. Three female ‘Sharp thinkers’ are also set to make an appearance: Petra Stienen, Griet Op de Beeck and Aaltje van Zweden. Violinist Janine Jansen will display her versatility with three concerts in the Main Hall: in a recital together with pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk, and as a soloist with the Swedish Radio Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The season opens on 17th September with Andris Nelsons and his Boston Symphony Orchestra, back in Amsterdam for the first time since 2001. Another guest will be Riccardo Chailly with his Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields will celebrate its sixtieth birthday with pianist, and regular guest conductor, Murray Perahia. Elite vocal stars such as Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming and Eva-Maria Westbroek will be making comebacks. In the Recital Hall, the Borodin Quartet will mark its seventy fifth anniversary with a performance that will include all fifteen string quartets by Shostakovich. Also new in the Recital Hall: a series of three concerts by the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw including homages to the legendary American musicians Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Chet Baker. Various innovative programme concepts are set to continue during the 2018-2019 season. In November 2017, the successful festival Turning East marked the birth of a new tradition in which huge stars from the Middle East regularly perform in the Main Hall. This year, proceedings get underway on 17th March with the legendary Iranian singer Googoosh, who will be performing her first concert in the Netherlands at The Royal Concertgebouw. Under the banner Club Concertgebouw new experimental concerts will again take place in the Choir Hall: from jazz, singer-songwriters, to music from the Netherlands and the rest of the world. The TRACKS-concert series will also continue to take place in the Recital Hall, involving a mixture of music, theatre and storytelling. The Sunday Morning Concerts The Sunday Morning Concert is a collaboration with AVROTROS. This year will be the 24th edition. The basis of the concert series is formed by the two ensembles from the Foundation for Broadcast Music: the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Choir. Together, they will open the series on 2nd September with highlights from the history of Italian opera. Conductors will include the likes of Kevin John Edusei, Edo de Waart and Gustavo Gimeno. They will be accompanied by soloists such as the pianist Severin von Eckardstein, mezzo soprano Julie Boulianne, violinist Liza Ferschtman, pianist Anna Fedorova and clarinetist Martin Fröst. Guest orchestras will include the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bremer Philharmoniker and Concerto Köln. Furthermore, there will be chamber music programmes performed by pianist Boris Giltburg, cellist Quirine Viersen and the Cremona Quartet. The Sunday Morning Concert takes place every weekend from September to June. Robeco SummerNights On 30th June, Laura Mvula, Gretchen Parlato and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will open the thirtieth edition of the Robeco SummerNights with The Gershwin Project. During the summer period, 84 concerts will take place in a range of genres, including classical, opera, film music, musicals, pop, jazz and world music. Classical stars such as pianist Jorge Luis Prats will perform, as well as violinists Isabelle Faust and Gautier Capuçon, jazz legend Dianne Reeves and Eric Whitacre, the rock star of choir conductors. There will also be time for special orchestras such as I, Culture Orchestra, the Aurora Orchestra and the MIAGI Youth Orchestra. Violinist Isabelle van Keulen and pianist Ronald Brautigam, permanent fixtures since the Robeco SummerNights first started, will also join the party for this anniversary year, as will Leo van Doeselaar, who will be celebrating his 25th anniversary as titular organist of The Royal Concertgebouw (Maarschalkerweer-organ). This anniversary year sees the birth of another new tradition in the Main Hall: Star Wars – Live in Concert, in which Star Wars films will be shown accompanied by live music. Through Robeco SummerNights, Robeco and The Royal Concertgebouw aim to bring musical traditions to life in an innovative way and make them accessible to everyone. More information can be found on www.robecosummernights.nl. The Royal Concertgebouw is considered one of the most important concert halls in the world because of its unparalleled acoustics and wide range of high-quality programming. The concert hall has a long-standing tradition for putting on legendary concerts performed by musical greats. With more than 900 activities (of which almost 80% are concerts) and over 700,000 concert-goers annually, as well as educational projects and playing host to many private events, The Royal Concertgebouw is one of the most visited concert halls in the world. The Concertgebouw Café also attracts more than 100,000 visitors annually. Since its founding, the Concertgebouw has been a privately funded art institution with a rich tradition in the field of (concert) sponsorship and fundraising. The Royal Concertgebouw generates approximately 95% of its income independently. Approximately 5% comes from subsidies. A special contribution from the BankGiro Lottery has enabled The Royal Concertgebouw to realise its ambitions in the field of sustainability. For further information visit: www.concertgebouw.nl/en. Note to editors: For further information and footage/images, please contact Reinoud van Houten, PR Manager and Press Spokesperson for The Royal Concertgebouw, email: [email protected] .