Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Utrecht

British vocal talent adds some very British glamour to the closing Avrotros Friday concert featuring Elgar's most famous oratorio. 

Juliana Zara and Annemarie Kremer lead the cast in a riotous, yet deeply touching, new production from Nederlandse Reisopera. 

Sex, fame, luxury and envy meet in an irresistible cocktail as the Reisopera stages the Dutch premiere of Thomas Adès’ chamber opera. 

A touring show on a frugal budget, but Opera Zuid's take on Offenbach's diabolical delights hits the spot in burning temperatures in the Netherlands. 

An evening of premieres – the European premiere of Bates' concerto plus the world premiere of Joey Roukens' First Symphony – delights the Rotterdam Philharmonic's Utrecht audience. 

A high-spirited programme in Tivoli Vredenburg that struck just the right note of hope and renewal as the classical music scene across Europe reawakens.

Ensemble Correspondances give a virtuoso display of polychoral music from Marc-Antoine Charpentier and his Italian contemporaries.

Emotions run high in a programme of Monteverdi madrigals given by Cantar Lontano at the Utrecht Early Music Festival.

Neither Rachmaninov's music nor the precision and perfection of the performance lose any of their power, vigor, brilliance and magic with a change from the traditional concert perspective.

A refreshing, unconventional reworking of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas by L'Arpeggiata in Utrecht. 

Jonathan Dove’s new opera about the foolhardy destruction of nature receives an open-air world première with fiery special effects against an evocative historical backdrop.

Edward Gardner and Edward Caswell offered the British choir tradition in the form of Elgar's The Kingdom as a refreshingly programmed alternative to the many Bach passions. The combined choirs excelled together with an impressive Edith Haller.

Wende Snijders is a master of space and time; she uses everything both physical and emotional to transcend the footlights in the Winterreise Dutch composer Boudewijn Tarenskeen wrote expressly for her. 

His passing last August was no surprise. Anyone who had witnessed Frans Brüggen conduct in recent years knew that he was far from healthy and old for his years.

Now that the Gaudeamus organization is nicely nestled into the Utrecht music scene
and its new Walhalla, concert hall complex Tivoli Vredenburg, back to back
festivities of Early Music and tomorrow’s composers are ours to enjoy.

Outstanding singing; flawed and courageous theatre from graindelavoix in Utrecht.

Christina Pluhar led ensemble L'Arpeggiata in a concert of delightful sacred music from the Habsburg court chapel in Vienna.

New Year’s Day falls at the end of August in Utrecht! We gather, we drink, we kiss, we wish each other well while opening the Festival of Early Music.

Janine Jansen's International Chamber Music Festival offered a special treat this year: scratchcard concert, where a scratchcard determined which concerts one got to see.

The International Chamber Music Festival offered a cycling tour along some of the finest buildings in Utrecht, where music was performed in this special setting.

Introdans brings news interpretations by contemporary choreographers of the controversial classics L'Après-midi d'un faune, The Firebird and Le Sacre du Printemps in their programme Russian Rumour.

Utrecht has endured a long wait for its new concert hall complex, Tivoli Vredenburg. The official opening is still a few months away but we were afforded a sneak preview Saturday evening in one of the smaller halls aptly named Hertz, a play on words combining the musical term for pitch and Vredenburg’s famed architect, Herman Hertzberger. 

Netherlands Dance Theatre present Kylián's Heart's Labyrinth, Goecke's Hello Earth and new work by Lightfoot and Leon, Stop-Motion, in Programme III at Stadsschouwburg, Utrecht.

Asko|Schönberg are respected pioneers of the new music scene, but this concert in Utrecht found them in less well-travelled territory: music by Debussy and Ravel. This proved a disappointing mismatch of repertoire.

All too often opera in concert is presented in its most basic format, without the theatricality and staging so characteristic to its execution. However, when a presentation comes along from the likes of The King’s Consort, you can be sure that justice will be served, even without the smoke and mirrors we’ve all grown to love.

In the oldest quarter of Utrecht sat two harpsichords nestled side-by-side in a dimly lit corner of the Geertekerk. It was perhaps an unassuming sight from afar, yet as Skip Sempé and Pierre Hantaï entered the space, the atmosphere suddenly perked up the attentions of unsuspecting ears.

A stunning Amandine Beyer courageously took the stage this weekend during a string of concerts surrounding the theme of J.S. Bach during Utrecht’s Bach Dag (Bach Day). Comprising seven concerts on Saturday alone in churches inside the beautiful city of Utrecht, this two-day event was produced by the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht (Utrecht Early Music Festival).

The energetic Holland Baroque Society presented a lively program juxtaposing works of Johann Joseph Fux and Johann Sebastian Bach this week. Evident from the start was the group’s overarching enthusiasm and passion for this particular repertoire. The atmosphere reflected the musicians onstage, full of youth and infused with a breath of new life.

The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra summoned the spirit of the holiday season this weekend with their performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The work was originally composed for church services taking place during the Christmas season of 1734. Tonight’s performance featured the entire work, which was originally split into six sections, each intended for a different day.

In an age of modern convenience and so-called progress, it’s refreshing to witness an endeavor by a group of enthusiastic young musicians seeking to dig up music’s past. Bojan Cicic and his ensemble Suonar Cantando put on a marvelous display of musical responsibility by treating this repertoire with the fire it deserves.

A pseudo-cinematic turn of events forced the world renowned Brodsky Quartet to pull out all the stops for their concert in Utrecht last Thursday evening. Continually in demand as interpreters of the standard string quartet repertoire as well as proponents of new music commissioned by living composers, the quartet has accumulated a wealth of original manuscripts for their personal catalogue.

An impassioned evening of Beethoven was drawn from the fingertips of the fascinating young pianist Shuann Chai last Wednesday in Utrecht’s Vredenburg Leeuwenbergh. Presenting three of Ludwig van Beethoven’s most well-known sonatas for piano, the Pathétique, Moonlight, and Appassionata, Ms. Chai wove an intriguing and constantly changing musical soundscape.

The world’s largest gathering of early music artists and professionals, the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, marked its final concert on Sunday 2 September with a full-house performance by the Collegium Vocale Gent. Led by Philippe Herreweghe, the ensemble has been dedicated since the 1970s to the pursuit of Baroque sonorities and performance practice.

There are some concerts where you are confronted with the same emotions from start to finish, concerts with pieces that have a similar feel and similar impact throughout. Tonight’s concert was not one of those: it varied from funny (Jeux), to serene (Prélude), to confusing (Concerto for piano and winds).

Even though I’ve been to quite a lot of concerts these past few years, I still can’t put my finger on why some concerts attract many attendees and especially why some are so sparsely visited.

Zoltán Kodály was an ethnomusicographer as much as a composer: he studied the folk music of Hungary, and this influence can be heard in most of his works. Dances of Galánta is no exception, yet it is so much more than folk melodies arranged for an orchestra.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Ouverture on Hebrew Themes is a 1919 work originally written for clarinet, string quartet and piano, although the composer himself orchestrated it in 1934.

Wie einst Händel, knüpfen Ton Koopman und Ensembles – darunter Sophie Junker und Jakub Józef Orliński – nach Esther auch mit diesem Oratorium an vorherigen Erfolg an.

Das Blockflötenensemble inspirierte und beeindruckte in Utrecht mit einer Führung durch Sevillas Kathedrale.

Bei Christie und Merzouki verschwammen die inneren und äußeren Grenzen der Rollen und Stile, um eine unvergessliche Gemeinschaft eines fabelhaften, zeitlosen Feengartens zu schaffen.

Das Riesenorchester von Les Ambassadeurs – La Grande Écurie beeindruckte mit klanglich überraschend griffiger Homogenität, um diesen gekürzten Bankettsuiten Francœurs zur abermalig neuen Pracht zu verhelfen.

Zum großen Jubiläum veranstaltete das Ensemble ein spezielles Bachfestival in Utrecht, das am Eröffnungsabend nicht origineller und unterhaltsamer hätte beginnen können.

Das aktuelle Programm des Ensembles enstprach vollends dem erwarteten Vorsatz: ein musikalisch-idiomatischer Spaß, der alle erfreut.

Luftig weiche, herzaufgehende Wärme und freudige Überzeugungskraft ließen Bachs Pauken- und Trompetenjubel nicht einmal vermissen.

Die konzertante Aufführung dieser operalen Rarität ist vor allem für Václav Luks und sein Collegium 1704 ein Triomphe d'amour beim Utrechter Oude Muziek Festival.