The brand new opera company New Opera Amsterdam and the New European Ensemble will present an exciting music theatre production called Moonstruck Intoxication. In a performance filled with intoxicating madness a tragic clown and a bride jilted at the altar with her rotting wedding cake move the audience between hard, cold reality and the absurd fantasy-world of dreams. The program pushes boundaries theatrically, musically and vocally. The young up and coming production team will explore how suicide, anxiety dreams, hope and love can leave one balancing on the edge of life and death.

The talented young stage director Lotte de Beer will take charge of the staging for this production. She is the artistic director of New Opera Amsterdam and learned her craft as Peter Konwitschny's assistant. Stage design will be done by the highly imaginative duo Clement & Sanôu. They are currently also designing a new Monteverdi Orfeo for Pierre Audi. The New European Ensemble will be conducted by music director Christian Karlsen. Alto Carina Vinke will sing the title roles of both Pierrot Lunaire and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot. Actress Ilse Ott will join alto Carina Vinke on stage exploring the depths of both dramatic works.

Hans Werner Henze’s dark and brooding Sonata for Six Players will open the performance followed by Arnold Schönberg’s masterpiece Pierrot Lunaire. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot is a perturbing monodrama as well as a virtuoso tour de force with stunning vocal effects. Actor Ilse Ott will join alto Carina Vinke on stage exploring the depths of both dramatic works.

MOONSTRUCK INTOXICATION can be seen in theatres in the Netherlands starting in August 2010:

August 19th, 20:00  |  Apeldoorn, Schouwburg Orpheus   click here for tickets
August 21st, 20:00  |  Nijmegen, LUX   click here for tickets
August 25th, 20:15  |  Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ   click here for tickets
November 12th, 20:00  |  Leiden, Stadsgehoorzaal
April 4th 2011, 20:15  |  Zwolle, Theater Odeon

For the new cultural season the New European Ensemble will present a wide-ranging program varying from large music theatre to intimate chamber music concerts.
This year will open with the new music theatre production ''Moonstruck Intoxication'' in Orfeus, Apeldoorn conducted by music director Christian Karlsen and directed by Ton Lutz award winning Lotte de Beer. Carina Vinke will sing both the title roles in Arnold Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Peter Maxwell Davies' Miss Donnithorne's Maggot. The production will tour the Netherlands during the season with a first stop in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan't IJ on the 25th of August. 
In October the ensemble will tour Sweden's major cities with works specially written for the ensemble by some of today’s most exciting young composers.
N.Eu.E. will also form part of the core programming of the new White Crow Music Festival in Leiden in November. This is Leiden’s first chamber music festival! Artistic director Hanna Shybayeva is of course the N.Eu.E. pianist.

To keep your self updated sign up for our newsletter or check out or agenda!

Jacob Kellermann, the New European Ensemble’s guitarist won the prestigious Internationalen Wettbewerb für Kammermusik mit Gitarre in Aschaffenburg, Germany with his violin/guitar duo KeMi. Both Jacob and violinist Daniel Migdal who performed with N.Eu.E. last November in Scandinavian Imagery won three rounds of competition against 20 other ensembles from 17 different countries. The duo has won an international concert tour with performances in Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands. A review of their prize-winning performance sighted “Fire, passion and character” and described their playing as “authentic, heartfelt and touching”.

It is with great pride that we congratulate Jacob and Daniel on their success. For more information on Duo KeMi visit their website: www.duokemi.com

After months of hard work preparing for what was to be our largest project to date, we performed Hans Werner Henze's masterpiece Voices on March 13th, 2010 in the Theater aan 't Spui in The Hague. Audience and performers alike were moved by the powerful combination of Henze’s music with incisive visual material and a photo exhibit by Amnesty International focused on human rights. Audience members described the performance as “impressive”, “fantastic” and “deeply moving”. By way of this newsletter we would like to thank everyone who attended. It was a great experience for the ensemble give such a special performance to a full hall! If you were unable to attend Voices last March you will be happy to know that the Voices project will certainly be repeated as part of our future programming so keep an eye on our agenda!

Prior to performing the concert version of Voices at Theater aan ‘t Spui New European Ensemble spent a day at the Haagse Hogeschool (The Hague University) where we presented two special education concerts for youth focused on human rights. The students were dumbfounded when confronted by Amnesty International’s pictures in combination with Hans Werner Henze’s music.
Actor and storyteller Winston Scholsberg led a discussion on subjects ranging from freedom of expression and religion to the right to education.

The colourful music is a mix of elements from a broad range of styles including folk, classical song form, cabaret and jazz. These elements strive to give a voice to those around the world who are unable to speak freely for themselves. A collection of 70 different instruments from around the world is used in the work with only 17 musicians on hand to play them all. This requires a high degree of virtuosity from the ensemble. Voices contains 22 songs written on texts by writers ranging from Ho Chi Minh, Herberto Padilla and Bertolt Brecht to F.C. Delius and Heinrich Heine. 

The relevance of the piece’s thematic focus to contemporary culture was the reason the New European Ensemble chose to collaborate with Amnesty International on this special project.

During this spectacular performance the New European Ensemble will bring Amnesty’s message on human rights and Henze’s musical communication of this message together.

The photo exhibition ‘Focus on Human Rights’ created by Amnesty International will be shown in the foyer of Theater aan het Spui before the concert. The exhibit is made up of pictures from all parts of the world, made by renowned photographers. The pictures illustrate the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. During the performance these and other first-rate pictures from Amnesty’s collection will be projected.

The concert on March 13th is the final performance of the day for the 15th edition of  ‘Dag in de Branding’ (festival for new music in the Hague).
Amnesty and the New European Ensemble have also created a large-scale educational project for the Haagse Hogeschool to reach youth and inform them about human rights issues.

For more information:
Visit our Agenda for information on purchasing tickets
www.dagindebranding.nl
www.theateraanhetspui.nl