PRESS RELEASE
Amsterdam, 19 November 2024
On 28 November, ticket sales for the first four performances at the 78th Holland Festival will start via www.hollandfestival.nl: performances inspired by paintings, and two matinees in the Concertgebouw. The full programme will be announced on 18 March 2025 and will include the project Welcome to Asbestos Hall, which associate artist and choreographer Trajal Harrell are developing especially for the festival.
Director Łukasz Twarkowski (Respublika, Holland Festival 2023) will return to the festival with the multimedia performance ROHTKO, about the spectacular sale of a painting assumed to be by the famous artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970), but which proved to be a forgery. Otemba – Daring Women by composer Misato Mochizuki and director Jan van den Berg is a musical theatre piece in which a 17th-Century painting reveals an unexpected history. And the renewed collaboration with NTR ZaterdagMatinee will yield two concerts: in When We Were Trees by Ensemble Resonanz, cellist Abel Selaocoe will perform not just own work, but a new composition by Kate Moore as well. And Atlas Orchestra is a concert by over 40 musicians from Europe, the Near and Far East who make up the Atlas Orchestra with a great variety of instruments. The world premiere of a new composition by founder Joël Bons will be the very first Atlas Orchestra concert.
ROHTKO
One of the biggest scandals in the art world lies at the heart of Łukasz Twarkowski's performance, brought to life through collaboration with his close creative team and actors from Latvia, Poland and China. In 2004, a husband and wife purchased a Rothko painting for the sum of 8.3 million dollars. Years later, it turned out not to be by Rothko at all, but by a Chinese maths teacher from Queens, who also forged Jackson Pollock paintings. Can a fake painting give rise to genuine feeling? What is real art, and what is its value? To put it another way: how does the Rohtko with ‘ht’ from the title compare to a real Rothko with ‘th’? In less than four hours full of steaming beats, and two huge video screens, the creators of ROHTKO go in search of answers, inspired by philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s book Shanzai on the value of the real and fake.
ROHTKO will be performed from 25 through 28 June at ITA.
Otemba – Daring Women
The restoration of a 17th-century painting by Jacob Coeman that depicts a colonial scene results in a nocturnal encounter between the restorer and the woman in the portrait, the Japanese-Dutch Cornelia van Nijenroode, wife of Pieter Cnoll, a wealthy senior merchant in Batavia. She remarried after his death and was the first woman in the Netherlands to file a lawsuit over financial self-determination when she wished to divorce her second husband. In Otemba – Daring Women, she steps out of the painting for a one-time conversation with the restorer about colonial relations, the feminine gaze and autonomy. Otemba – Daring Women is performance in celebration of Amsterdam 750.
Otemba – Daring Women will be performed from 19 through 21 June at Muziekgebouw.
When We Were Trees - ZaterdagMatinee x Holland Festival
Cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe will perform with the 21 string players of the German Ensemble Resonanz. Selaocoe is a musician who effortlessly navigates different genres and styles, working just as easily with beatboxers and orchestras. He combines his cello playing with voice, overtone singing and body percussion. The programme will feature own compositions and improvisations by Selaocoe, work by Antonín Dvořák and Giovanni Sollima, as well as the world premiere of a new cello concerto by composer Kate Moore. Moore was at the Holland Festival before with Sacred Environment (2017), an oratorio in the form of a virtual dream journey.
When We Were Trees will be performed at The Concertgebouw on Saturday 14 June.
Atlas Orchestra - ZaterdagMatinee x Holland Festival
Joël Bons is the initiator of Atlas Orchestra, the first performance by the Atlas Orchestra. This new collective brings together music cultures from all over, including China, Japan, India, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Syria, Turkey and Europe. Related string, wind and percussion instruments come together to form an exciting and inspiring sound palette. After evolving separately for centuries, the Atlas Orchestra will reunite these ‘descendants’ and their musical diversity in a brand-new composition. Joël Bons was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, the ‘Nobel prize for music’, for Nomads, a precursor to this work.
Atlas Orchestra will be performed in The Concertgebouw on Saturday 21 June.
The Holland Festival will take place in June 2025. The full programme will be announced in March 2025. Dates, further information and tickets for the above productions will be available from 28 November 2024 via www.hollandfestival.nl.