2007 marked the Holland Festival’s 60-year anniversary, a good reason to look back at 1947, when one of the festival’s missions was to promote international exchange by inviting both artists and visitors from abroad and introducing these to a Dutch audience.
Under the banner of Oppression and Compassion, the festival offered performances which took the worst of humankind as its themes: Elfriede Jelinek’s Babel by the Wiener Burgtheater about the events in the Abu Ghraib prison; John Adams’ Doctor Atomic with a libretto by Peter Sellars based on Robert Oppenheimer’s development of the first atomic bomb. Compassion and reconciliation were also found in the danced East-West dialogues by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Kahn, and Jerome Bell and Pichet Klunchun, respectively.
Deborah Warner, Fiona Shaw
Walid Raad
The Wooster Group
Simon McBurney, Complicite
Wiener Burgtheater
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
CRT Centro di Ricerca per il Teatro di Milano
Jan Lauwers, Needcompany
Pierre Boulez, Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Asko Ensemble, Schönberg Ensemble
Klangforum Wien
Alarm Will Sound
Asko Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble
Gérard Grisey, Modest Moessorgski, AlexanderRaskatov
Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, Wayne Shorter Quartet
Brian Wilson
Philip Glass Ensemble
Robert Ashley
Dream Amsterdam Foundation
De Veenfabriek
Frances-Marie Uitti, Paul Griffiths
David Dramm
Ernst Reijseger, Mola Sylla, Tenore e Concordu de Orosei
Maarten Ornstein, Peter Ablinger
The Bad Plus
Welcome to the Holland Festival archive! The history of our festival dates back to 1947. Through the programs of each festival edition we aim to tell this history here. Currently our archive has been digitised from 1990 onwards, more history is to follow soon. Sadly some information is only available in Dutch but we aim to be as bilingual as possible. For additions or tips send an email to [email protected].
