The 31st of the Dutch String Players Guild will take place from 19 to 28 July 2024. 

The title of the program, A Second Home, refers to the repertoire in both a literal and figurative sense. Some composers were looking for a new place in the world to feel more at home, others felt less at home in the political or musical climate. In one composition, the piece even had to find a new home in a new form and a new program due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dutch composer Rick van Veldhuizen wrote this piece for string orchestra and harp in 2019. This piece, which is full of contrasts, takes its title from the poem ‘Le condamné à mort’ by Jean Genet.

In 2019, Rick van Veldhuizen (born 1994) wrote his work Mais le corps taché d’ombres based on the poem Le condamné à mort by French poet Jean Genet (1910-1986). This should have been for symphony orchestra for the Amsterdam Concertgebouw’s Mahler Festival 2020 as a prelude to Mahler’s 9th symphony. Mahler’s exploration of the boundary between life and death, beauty and pain, also inspired Van Veldhuizen to write this piece. The version that eventually premiered with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra after revision in 2021 was for harp and string orchestra in a programme that included Mahler’s 5th symphony.

It found its second home in that programming alongside the famous Adagietto with the same scoring. However, this was a concert without an audience at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The orchestra took the piece on tour the following year through the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. This programme featured it anyway in combination with Mahler’s originally intended 9th symphony. The NSG feels honoured that, in collaboration with the composer, this year, the piece will be performed in a version for harp with a more compact string orchestra.

Program:

Van Veldhuizen – Mais le corps taché d’ombres

Schulhoff – 5 pieces for string quartet (version for string orchestra) 

Alwyn – Lyra Angelica (concert for harp en strijkorkest) – solost: Joost Willemze

Britten – Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge