Nieuw Violin Talent with a.o. Maerle Oostindie

The theme of this year's Grachtenfestival is Green! As a result, the house, garden, and rooftop terrace concerts have been replaced by a series of performances held in and around Amsterdam’s famous canal gardens.

When the canal belt was originally designed, gardens were incorporated into the plan as well. Hidden behind the façades of the grand canal houses, these gardens form the city's secret green spaces. A 17th-century law still protects many of these gardens today.

Especially for this year's festival, a number of these normally inaccessible gardens will be open to the public and host special concerts

Featuring, among other works, Spring from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, young string players from the Sweelinck Academy bring one of the best-known masterpieces of the Baroque era to life. Through a series of short, contrasting movements, the music vividly evokes thunderstorms, birdsong, flowing streams, and the chill of winter. Alongside Vivaldi, the programme also includes chamber music for violin ensemble, performed by students who have been playing and collaborating intensively from a young age.

Violinist Maerle Oostindie (born in 2012) began playing the violin at the age of five and has studied since the age of ten at the Sweelinck Academy, where she is a student of Wiesje Miedema. With the ensemble Vioollab Strings, she performed at prizewinners’ concerts of Stage4kids in Hamburg and won De Muziekwedstrijd of the Princess Christina Competition. She has also performed with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw. Together with her fellow students, she demonstrates the remarkable level of musicianship and ensemble playing that can be achieved at a young age.

Musicians

Maerle Oostindie violin
Maerle Oostindie violin
Emeral Rouse violin
Annalucia Withacker Williams violin
Xixi Wu viola
Rasmus Kramer cello
Miriam Burgers piano