VU-ORCHESTRA / VU-Orkest, Netherlands
Conductor: DAAN ADMIRAL

Claude Debussy
(1862-1918)
IBÉRIA (1905-8), from Images pour orchestre                    
Par les rues et par les chemins ("In the streets and by-ways")
Les parfums de la nuit ("The fragrance of the night")
Le matin d'un jour de fête ("The morning of a festival day")

Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937)
LA VALSE (1919-20)                                

Sergei Rachmaninoff                                 
(1873-1943)
SYMPHONIC DANCES, Op. 45 (1940)                         
Non allegro
Andante con moto (Tempo di valse)
Lento assai – Allegro vivace – Lento assai. Come prima – Allegro vivace

The VU-Orchestra originally belonged to the Free University of Amsterdam, but has been an independent association since 2014. The orchestra was founded in 1962 by the Dutch conductor Otto Klap. What started as a small chamber orchestra, grew in the last 50 years to become a magnificent symphony orchestra. The VU-Orchestra is one of the Netherlands biggest and most pioneering orchestras thanks to the effort put in by the members and their conductor Daan Admiraal.
The repertoire is put together by some members of the orchestra, otherwise known as the ‘programmacommissie’. The conductor is also part of this group. When looking for a new repertoire, the group takes the wishes of other orchestra members into account, while also looking for challenging and innovative pieces. The orchestra studies a new repertoire every 6 months, and ends every project with a series of concerts.
The VU-Orchestra often accompanies choirs and soloists, whilst doing their own projects. The collaboration with the Hague Concert Choir (HTK) brought the magnificent War Requiem by Britten to the Dr. Anton Philipszaal in The Hague and The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in the spring of 2015. The orchestra has accompanied greats in the past like Janine Jansen, Isabelle van Keulen, Ivo Janssen, Quirine Viersen en Pieter Wispelwey.
Every year the VU-Orchestra travels to another country during their summer tour. In the last couple of years the orchestra has been to places like Italy, Germany, France, Bulgaria, England, Russia, Estonia and Portugal.
www.vu-orkest.nl

Daan Admiraal was born in Eindhoven in 1949. He began his music career as the oboe virtuoso: already during his studies in 1971 he was appointed as solo-oboe in the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra. He completed his studies of oboe at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with many prizes, among them the Zilveren Vriendenkrans, a special prize of the Friends of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Prize of Excellence in 1976. He studied orchestral conducting at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Louis Stotijn, to continue privately with the famous Russian conductor Kyrill Kondrashin.
Daan Admiraal is chief-conductor of two leading Dutch University Orchestras (Amsterdam and Delft). Admiral commands a large repertory of symphonic works from Beethoven to Mahler and the “classics” of the 20th Century, as well as the standard works of the vocal-instrumental repertory.
Daan Admiraal is also a committed choir conductor. From 1993-2008 he led one of the oldest choral societies in Holland, Toonkunst Rotterdam. In 2008 he became the new artistic leader of the Haag’s Toonkunstkoor HTK. A recent great achievement of the HTK was the Dutch première of Schnittke’s oratorio Nagasaki (1958).
In the past seasons Admiraal conducted opera productions in Amsterdam, The Hague and Delft (Mozart, Idomeneo; Stravinsky, The Rake’s Progress, Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana, Bizet, Carmen). He conducted Het Limburgs Orkest, Het Gelders Orkest, I Fiamminghi, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, the Virtuosi Pragenses and the baroque orchestras Concerto d’Amsterdam and In Styl Moderno. In recent years Admiraal performed in Sweden, Denmark, England, Germany, Czech Republic, Belgium, France and Italy, and recently in Russia and China.