Programma

Young Composers Competition

Composers Weekend

13 decdecember 2025 - 14 decdecember 2025

Nothing better than creating your own music and performing it with top musicians! All young composers who want to do more with their music and are maximum 18 years old can apply for the annual NBE Young Composers Competition. Whether you sing, rap, make beats or compose on your instrument – anything goes, as long as you make it up yourself. During the Young Composers Competition, participants receive guidance from experienced composers and arrangers, meet other young musicians, gain stage experience and have their work performed by top musicians. The competition is a springboard for many serious composing talents in the Netherlands and produces beautiful new compositions every year. You can apply for the Young Composers Competition until 12 October 2025. COMPOSERS WEEKEND In the Composers Weekend, all selected young composers, who participate in the Young Composers Competition, and NBE musicians meet each other. Since the Showcases, the young composers have been guided by an arranger to adapt their composition for the NBE and this weekend they will hear for the first time how their piece sounds when played by the NBE. It is a weekend full of rehearsals, games and workshops. Each day will end with a concert where the composers will perform their own composition together with the NBE in front of an audience! After each concert, young composers are chosen who are guaranteed a place in the Finale.

lees meer

Young Composers Competition

Finale

21 decdecember 2025

Nothing better than creating your own music and performing it with top musicians! All young composers who want to do more with their music and are maximum 18 years old can apply for the annual NBE Young Composers Competition. Whether you sing, rap, make beats or compose on your instrument – anything goes, as long as you make it up yourself. During the Young Composers Competition, participants receive guidance from experienced composers and arrangers, meet other young musicians, gain stage experience and have their work performed by top musicians. The competition is a springboard for many serious composing talents in the Netherlands and produces beautiful new compositions every year. You can apply for the Young Composers Competition until 12 October 2025. FINALE During the Finale of the Young Composers Competition, the remaining young composers will perform with their own composition, concluding the competition. Three composers will be chosen to perform their own piece together with the NBE at the annual New Year's Concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on 1 January.

lees meer

New Year’s Concert 2026

31 decdecember 2025 - 1 janjanuari 2026

Traditionally, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble kicks of the new year with a grand musical feast from The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. With unexpected guests, the most beautiful musical stories from all corners of the world and, of course, this year again the young winners of the composition competition. A sensual performance offering solidarity, hope, comfort and inspiration.   Please note: ticket sales is happening via website of The Concertgebouw and will only start in November.  

lees meer

Berlioz’ Krachtige Vrouwen (Berlioz’ Powerful Women)

29 janjanuari 2026 - 15 febfebruari 2026

The Nederlands Blazers Ensemble yearns, whispers, cries and moves with Berlioz' Krachtige Vrouwen. With this performance, the Blazers follow in the eccentric composer's footsteps. The revolutionary Symphonie Fantastique revolves around a strong but unattainable woman in a story full of obsession, madness, jealousy and murder. In La Mort de Cléopâtre, Cleopatra, a charismatic and fearless woman, chooses suicide over imprisonment, taking her fate into her own hands. These masterfully instrumented compositions have been transformed especially for the NBE into a spectacular wind ensemble. A singer adds an extra female touch to this expressive performance, bursting with drama, longing and tragedy. There will be an introduction before the performance. The introduction is free, but at some theatres you need to book (see websites theatres for more info).

lees meer

Vientos Flamencos

8 aprapril 2026 - 12 aprapril 2026

Twelve years after the Historias de Viento programme, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and Flamenco Biënnale Nederland are joining forces again. This time together with flamenco singer David Lagos, from Jerez de la Frontera, a city known for its rich flamenco tradition. With great expressive freedom, Lagos moves inside and outside the traditional singing style cante jondo. Together with the NBE, he performs a programme that both embraces the flamenco tradition and explores new musical paths. The NBE enters new flamenco territory with compositions by Florian Magnus Maier, in which flamenco ingeniously intertwines with classical and metal. In addition, De Blazers will play contemporary works by guitarist Tino van der Sman and Lagos’ own repertoire. Dancer Úrsula López accompanies the music with rousing rhythmic improvisations, making her debut at the Biennale. Prior to each concert, an introduction to the performance is provided. The introduction is free, but for some venues, reservations may be required (see theater websites for more information).

lees meer

De Beste Blazers van Eigen Bodem 1

Maite Hontelé (The Best Wind Players from our Land)

7 meimei 2026 - 17 meimei 2026

Dutch wind players are known worldwide for their creativity, innovative approach and virtuosity. In this brand-new series, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (NBE) gives the stage to the absolute top Dutch wind players to bring their musical imagination to life with all the possibilities offered by the NBE. We start this series with none other than trumpeter and salsa star Maite Hontelé. Born and raised in the Netherlands, Maite grew up in the rich tradition of Dutch wind culture. However, her heart was soon captured by the warm sounds of Latin American music, leading to a spectacular career in which she became one of the biggest stars in the salsa world, beloved throughout South America. Together with the NBE, Maite will take the audience on a musical journey that effortlessly navigates between Dutch brass band and Cuban salsa. Expect an evening of boundless music in which tradition and innovation merge in an unexpected way. An experience that lets you hear and feel the power of two musical worlds. Don't miss this special encounter between the best of the Netherlands and the fiery energy of Latin music!

lees meer

Voices from the East

29 sepseptember 2016 - 11 oktoktober 2016

Mohsen Namjoo vocals and setar Sahand Sahebdivani narrator If you flee your homeland, can you pack up your stories and take them with you? Soloists Mohsen Namjoo and Sahand Sahebdivani give their eager response to this question in this extraordinary NBE performance. Mohsen Namjoo is known as Iran’s answer to Bob Dylan: his critical songs awakened so much resistance that he felt compelled to flee his homeland to America. Storyteller Sahand brings the stories to life that his parents left behind in Iran as political refugees: universal stories about abandoning and being abandoned. Together with these two soloists, the NBE puts on a show about war and flight, but also about hope for a new world. The NBE plays music by the young Iranian composer Kaveh Vares. Mohsen Namjoo Mohsen Namjoo is one of Iran’s most controversial contemporary singer/songwriters, praised as “Iran’s Bob Dylan” by the New York Times. Namjoo has been unable to return to Iran since 2009 when he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for including verses from the Koran in one of his songs. Mohsen Namjoo has performed in the US, Canada, England, France, Italy and Germany. In 2007 he gave his first concert outside of Iran during the International Film Festival in Rotterdam! The international press call him a “Maverick” and “Avant Garde” due to his capacity to effortlessly fuse Persian traditional and folk music with jazz, rock and blues, and the unconventional use of his voice as an instrument. The lyrics to his songs are – just like his music – innovative and unique, a combination of Persian classical poems from poets such as Hafez, Rumi and Saadi and his own lyrics and poetry. Mohsen Namjoo has amassed a great number of fans and critics both in Iran and abroad. He is a visionary artist who not only speaks for contemporary youth, but touches their souls. He seamlessly blends the classical with the modern and the traditional with the contemporary. Mohsen Namjoo is a musical maverick, a non-conformist who not only takes on the ancient traditions in Persian music, but also has his own approach to composition, style and sound. Sahand Sahebdivani Sahand Sahebdivani is a writer, storyteller and musician. At the age of three, he fled his native Iran with his parents. In Amsterdam, his father brought Iran back to life through stories of ancient heroes and wise kings, but also about his grandmother and the street where he grew up. Sahand was infected by the storytelling virus and today travels through the Netherlands to share his stories.

lees meer

New Year’s concert 2017

31 decdecember 2016 - 1 janjanuari 2017

The Netherlands Wind Ensemble’s New Year's concerts have now become as inseparable from New Year’s Day as ski jumping and the Viennese Waltz. It’s a surprising musical party with unexpected guests from all over the world, extraordinary stories and new compositions from young composers. “It’s hard to think of a nicer way to start off the New Year than with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble’s New Year’s Concert in the Concertgebouw. Every year it’s a cheerful group, although the melancholy and depth are never far away, and each time when it comes to an end, there’s the same lament: if only all people on earth were musicians, there would never be another war.” Het Parool (****)

lees meer