The Rotterdam Symphony Chorus is a new professional symphonic choir, founded in consultation with Rotterdam’s concert hall De Doelen and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Artistic director and conductor of the Rotterdam Symphony Chorus is Wiecher Mandemaker. The chorus is an extension of the Laurens Collegium Rotterdam (www.laurenscollegium.nl) and belongs to the same organisation, the Stichting Laurenscantorij. Rotterdam Symphony Chorus has been brought into being to be able to perform compositions requiring a professional symphonic chorus.

The Rotterdam Symphony Chorus performs Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Laurenscantorij and conductor Martyn Brabbins on November 6th (Den Bosch) and November 7th (de Doelen), 2015.

One of the recent highlights was the premiere of four choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams, arranged for chorus and instrumental ensemble by Bob Zimmerman in February 2015. In 2014, it performed Britten’s War Requiem with the Gelders Orkest, as part of the events to commemorate Operation Market Garden in WO II. This performance was highly acclaimed in Dutch newspapers (5 out of 5 stars in Trouw, 4 out of 5 stars in Volkskrant).

The Rotterdam Symphony Chorus made its debut in the season 2013-2014 with the young piano brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen in Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam. Another notable performance was Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony (click here to listen) in the Doelen with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. The choir sang at the ceremony of the Children’s Peace Prize held in the Ridderzaal in The Hague, the international city of peace and justice, in the presence of Nobel price winner Desmund Tutu.

Wiecher Mandemaker is the artistic director and conductor of the Rotterdam Symphony Chorus, the Laurens Collegium Rotterdam and the Laurenscantorij. Wiecher works as the Choir Conducting section representative at the Rotterdam Conservatoire, where he is also conductor of the Codarts Chamber Choir. For choir projects, he cooperated with conductors such as the late Frans Brüggen, Jaap van Zweden, Ton Koopman, James Gaffigan, Harry Christophers and Ed Spanjaard.

Since adopting a new artistic profile, The Hague Philharmonic is demonstrating more than ever that symphonic music can still be meaningful to large and diverse audiences in the 21st century. The orchestra’s home venue is the new Zuiderstrandtheater in Scheveningen. Special productions are also provided at The Hague’s Paard van Troje throughout the season, making the orchestra appealing to both students and young professionals as well. In addition, The Hague Philharmonic performs regularly at various other major concert halls at home and abroad. with two principal conductors: Jan Willem de Vriend and the young Englishman Nicholas Collon (from summer 2016).
The Hague Philharmonic is renowned throughout The Hague and Leiden region. The orchestra takes part in many important high-profile events, including the annual Speech from the Throne and Festival Classique. During Christmas, New Year and Prince’s Day, the orchestra celebrates with people across the region by performing various special concerts. There are also many prolific collaborations with a wide range of local partners, including the Dutch National Theatre, Paard van Troje, Gemeentemuseum and The Hague African Festival, as well as with the Dutch National Opera and the NTR Saturday Matinee.
The Hague Philharmonic’s ambitions are spearheaded by a proactive education policy. Its educational projects involve over 31,000 contact moments with school children annually, which makes The Hague Philharmonic the driving force behind music education in the region. Numerous special activities have been developed for both primary and secondary schools.

Jan Willem de Vriend, designated “a godsend from the Netherlands” by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, is driven by the pioneering spirit of historically informed perfomance practice. As music director of the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, which he founded in 1982, he specialised in repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, reviving a wealth of rarely heard works through historically informed performances on modern instruments, praised by Gramophone magazine for their “technical finesse and a lively feeling for characterization”.
An award-winner for his creative contribution to classical music, Jan Willem de Vriend has more than 50,000 followers on Spotify and is in demand as a conductor around the world, appearing regularly with such orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest Den Haag, Belgian National Orchestra, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre National de Lyon, Bergen Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, the symphony orchestras of Netherlands Radio and Hessischer Rundfunk (Frankfurt Radio Symphony), Melbourne Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He is Principal Conductor Designate of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic and Orchestre National de Lille, and former Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and the Brabant Orchestra.
For the Challenge Classics label, de Vriend and the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra have recorded the complete Mendelssohn symphonies and all Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos with, among others, pianist Hannes Minnaar and violinist Liza Ferschtman. De Vriend’s interpretation of the Symphony No 7 prompted Classic FM to admire “a bounding flair that does real justice to the composer’s capacity for joy”. A further landmark of his recorded catalogue is his complete recording of the Schubert symphonies with the Residentie Orkest Den Haag.
De Vriend’s collaborative spirit is equally evident in his work for the stage, notably with opera director Eva Buchmann and Combattimento Consort Amsterdam. In addition to works by Monteverdi, Haydn, Handel and Telemann, their productions in Europe and the USA have included staged versions of Bach’s ‘Hunting’ and ‘Coffee’ Cantatas at the Bachfest Leipzig, and operas by Mozart, Rossini, Verdi and Cherubini, among them Mozart’s Don Giovanni und Rossini’s La gazzetta, both toured in Switzerland. De Vriend has also conducted operatic productions in Amsterdam (with the Nederlandse Reisopera), Barcelona, Strasbourg, Lucerne, Schwetzingen and Bergen.