On 26 November, sales of the first four performances of the 78th Holland Festival will start via www.hollandfestival.nl: two performances inspired by paintings and two matinees in The Concertgebouw. On 18 March 2025, the full programme will be announced, including the projectWelcome to Asbestos Hall which associate artist and choreographer Trajal Harrell will develop especially for the festival.
Director Łukasz Twarkowski (Respublika, Holland Festival 2023) returns to the festival with the multimedia performance ROHTKO on the spectacular sale of a forged painting by famous artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970). Otemba - Daring Women by composer Misato Mochizuki and director Jan van den Berg is a musical theatre performance in which a painting from the 17th century reveals an unexpected history. The renewed collaboration with the NTR ZaterdagMatinee immediately includes two concerts: in When We Were Trees by Ensemble Resonanz, cellist Abel Selaocoe performs not only his own work, but also a new composition by Kate Moore. And Atlas Orchestra is a concert by more than 40 musicians from Europe and Asia who form an orchestra with a wide variety of instruments. The world premiere of a new composition by founder Joël Bons will be Atlas Orchestra's very first concert.
ROHTKO
One of the biggest scandals in the art world is at the heart of the performance by Łukasz Twarkowski and his close-knit creative team and actors from Latvia, Poland and China. In 2004, a couple bought a Rothko painting for $8.3 million. Years later, it turned out to be not by Rothko himself, but by a Chinese maths teacher from Queens who also forged paintings by Jackson Pollock. Can a fake painting evoke real feelings? What is real art and what is it worth? In other words, how does the Rohtko with HT from the title compare to a real Rothko with TH? In just under four hours of steaming beats and video projections, the makers of ROHTKO In search of answers, inspired by the book Shanzai by philosopher Byung-Chul Han on the value of real and fake.
ROHTKO can be seen at ITA from 25 to 28 June 2025.
Otemba - Daring Women
The restoration of a 17th-century canvas depicting a colonial scene by Jacob Coeman culminates in a late-night meeting between the restorer and the woman portrayed, the Japanese-Dutch Cornelia van Nijenroode, wife of Pieter Cnoll, a wealthy chief merchant in Batavia, now Jakarta. After his death, she remarried and was the first woman in the Netherlands to file a lawsuit over financial self-determination when she wanted to divorce her second husband. In Otemba - Daring Women she steps out of the painting for a conversation about colonial relations, the female gaze and autonomy. Otemba - Daring Women is a performance on the occasion of Amsterdam 750.
Otemba - Daring Women can be seen at the Muziekgebouw from 19 to 21 June 2025.
When We Were Trees - Saturday Matinee x Holland Festival
Cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe performs with the 21 strings of German ensemble Resonanz. Selaocoe is a musician who can effortlessly navigate between genres and styles, working as smoothly with beatboxers as with orchestras. He combines his cello playing with singing, overtone singing and body percussion. The programme includes Selaocoe's own compositions, works by Antonín Dvořák, Giovanni Sollima as well as the world premiere of a new cello concerto by composer Kate Moore. Moore previously performed at the Holland Festival with Sacred Environment (2017), an oratorio in the form of a virtual dream journey.
When We Were Trees can be heard at The Concertgebouw on Saturday 14 June 2025.
Atlas Orchestra - Saturday Matinee x Holland Festival
Joël Bons is the initiator of the Atlas Orchestra, which will give its very first concert in collaboration with percussion ensemble HIIIT and the Oranjewoud Festival. This new collective unites the musical cultures of China, Japan, India, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Syria, Turkey and Europe, among others. Related string, wind and percussion instruments together form a new sound palette. After centuries of development, the Atlas Orchestra brings these 'descendants' and their musical diversity back together in an entirely new composition. For Nomads, a precursor to this work, Joël Bons received the 2019 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, the 'Nobel Prize for Music'.
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