The Holland Festival opens its 80th edition with the grand jazz opera *Champion* and welcomes Ho Tzu Nyen as an associate artist 

The Holland Festival will celebrate its 80th edition in 2027. For eight decades, the festival has aimed to present large-scale and innovative performing arts by leading artists from around the world. Founded in 1947 out of a need for healing, understanding and connection, the festival has grown to become a fixture in the international performing arts scene.

Emily Ansenk, director of the Holland Festival, on the upcoming edition: 

‘Eighty years of festival history calls for more than just a look back. That is why we are opening up our archive: not as a dusty relic of the past, but as a living source of material. Together with our audience, we are delving into defining and unusual moments — moments that have shaped the festival or, conversely, shed an unexpected light on its history. The archive helps us to take a critical look at how the festival has become what it is today. And it is precisely by following the creators of the past and present that we can look to the future from that past.’

How the past continues to shape the present – artistic traditions, personal histories and the question of who writes history – is a recurring theme in the programme, including the opening performance Champion and in the work of our new associate artist, the Singaporean multimedia artist Ho Tzu Nyen (1976).

Opening performance

The Holland Festival opens on 3 June 2027 with the European premiere of Champion, a boxing opera by composer Terence Blanchard (New Orleans, 1962) and librettist Michael Cristofer (Trenton, New Jersey, 1945). For three days, the Concertgebouw will be transformed into an arena with a boxing ring in the centre of the hall, a nod to the boxing matches that were regularly held here until around 1950.

Champion tells the true story of Emile Griffith, a boxer who became world champion but whose career remained forever linked to a tragedy. During a title fight in 1962, Griffith inflicted such serious injuries on his opponent, Benny “Kid” Paret – who had previously taunted him with homophobic remarks – that Paret died a few days later. This incident, the guilt that Griffith carried with him throughout his life, and his struggle with his sexual identity form the heart of this opera.

Composer and jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard moves with ease between jazz, classical and film music. He has released dozens of solo albums, won eight Grammys and received two Oscar nominations, worked as a film composer with directors such as Spike Lee (on more than 20 projects) and George Lucas, and was the first Black composer to have an opera staged by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His innovative and accessible work is firmly rooted in the social debates of our time on themes such as identity and social justice. This exceptional and large-scale Holland Festival production brings together an international cast, composer and director with Dutch partners such as the Groot Omroepkoor and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ho Tzu Nyen is the associate artist for the 80th edition 

Since 2019, the Holland Festival has been working annually with an associate artist: an international artist with a broad perspective and their own groundbreaking and interdisciplinary artistic practice, who commits to the festival for one edition. In addition to existing work, she or he will show new work that the Holland Festival co-produces. The associate artist also acts as a discussion partner for the programme team in shaping part of the rest of the festival programme.

Ho Tzu Nyen is a visual artist, filmmaker and theatre maker who draws on a rich mix of Eastern and Western cultural references and sources, ranging from theatre and film to philosophy and music. Central to his body of work is his exploration of the multitude of cultural identities in South-East Asia, a region so diverse in terms of languages, religions, cultures and histories that it cannot be confined to a single geographical or historical framework. It is also a region with which the Netherlands is closely connected due to its colonial past. In recent years, Ho has been integrating AI ever more emphatically into his artistic practice, not only as a tool but also as a subject of research: through questions concerning colonialism, power and collective memory, he examines how history is written and how new images and perceptions emerge.

Commenting on his appointment as associate artist, Ho Tzu Nyen says: 

‘During my previous encounters with the Holland Festival, I was struck by the programme’s versatility and its openness to different art forms and ways of thinking. I feel a strong affinity with many movements within Dutch culture, from the focus on the visible world in 17th-century painting to Mondrian’s quest for a utopian balance. I look forward to returning to Amsterdam as an associate artist of the Holland Festival: a great honour, a continuation of a wonderful friendship and the start of a new adventure.’

Ho has previously appeared at the Holland Festival with One or Several Tigers (2018), an online presentation by The Critical Dictionary of South-East Asia (2020) and The Mysterious Lai Teck (2020, cancelled due to the pandemic). This year, he is the artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.

Read the interview with Ho Tzu Nyen for the Holland Festival here.

Previous associate artists at the Holland Festival included Faustin Linyekula and William Kentridge (2019), Bill T. Jones (2020), Gisèle Vienne and Ryuichi Sakamoto (2021), Angélique Kidjo and Nicolas Stemann (2022), ANOHNI (2023), Christiane Jatahy (2024), Trajal Harrell (2025) and Hildur Guðnadóttir (2026).