Koen Kessels From 1 August 2024, the Flemish conductor Koen Kessels (1961) will be the new music director of Dutch National Ballet, and artistic director and principal conductor of Dutch Ballet Orchestra. He is taking over the baton from Matthew Rowe, who has fulfilled this special dual position since 2013 and who will be returning as principal guest conductor. Kessels has worked as a guest conductor with Dutch National Ballet and Dutch Ballet Orchestra since 2008, recently conducting the Dutch National Ballet productions The Sleeping Beauty and Dawson, both in 2022. He was appointed music director of Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2010, and music director of The Royal Ballet, in London, in 2015. Kessels will combine his new position with Dutch National Ballet and Dutch Ballet Orchestra with his position as music director of The Royal Ballet. He will leave his position as music director of Birmingham Royal Ballet at the end of the 2023 – 2024 season. Kessels is also a regular guest conductor with Teatro alla Scala (Milan), the Bayerisches Staatsballett (Munich) and l’Opéra national de Paris, and conducts for companies like New York City Ballet, Kungliga Operan (Stockholm), De Munt (Brussels), Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Théâtre du Capitole (Toulouse), Wiener Staatsballett, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro Real Madrid and the New National Theatre, Tokyo. His ballet repertoire includes Coppelia, Cinderella, Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, Firebird and Jewels. He also worked on several DVD recordings of ballet performances by Le Ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris, The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Le Ballet de l’Opéra national du Capitole. Works in his opera repertoire include Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin, Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjo, Nicholas Lens’s Shell Shock, a Requiem of War and Wim Henderickx’s De Bekeerlinge, and operas by composers such as Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and Britten. Kessels is an honorary professor at the music faculty of the University of Birmingham, the artistic director of Inspiratum (Belgium) and chair of the artistic staff of Classical Music at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp. As the artistic director of the Belgian HERMESensemble, he has collaborated with a great many leading composers. Koen Kessels: “It’s extremely exciting to be joining Ted Brandsen, Dutch National Ballet and Dutch Ballet Orchestra, and taking the next step in writing and narrating a story together. While I’m very honoured by this challenge, I also feel like I’m coming home to a company and orchestra with whom an extremely interesting collaboration arose some time ago already.” Dutch Ballet Orchestra Dutch Ballet Orchestra is the leading orchestra for dance in the Netherlands. In every performance, the orchestra searches for inspiring synergy between music and dance, in order to give the audience a magical experience. From classical ballet to modern masterpieces, and from music education to talent development, Dutch Ballet Orchestra inspires the movement in dance. Since its inception in 1965, the orchestra has been the proud musical partner of Dutch National Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater. One important mission of Dutch Ballet Orchestra is investing in the youngest generation of dancers and musicians. In 2023, for instance, the orchestra issued an open call for young composers, in collaboration with Dutch National Ballet, resulting in a new work that was presented in the Junior Company’s touring programme, Ten. The orchestra has also been working for some years already with the Dutch National Ballet Academy. For example, the orchestra members provide the music for the end-of-year performances Dancers of Tomorrow, the young academy dancers regularly visit orchestra rehearsals, and the orchestra has developed a lesson series about symphonic ballet music, which has a permanent place in the school’s curriculum. Dutch Ballet Orchestra has also collaborated regularly on innovative – and award-winning – family and school productions. Creatures, in partnership with ISH Dance Collective, won the international Young Audiences Music Award and the production Hansel and Gretel, in partnership with Orkater, received various Musical Awards. In productions like these, the musicians play from memory, with no conductor and in costumes, which lends great power of expression to the symphony orchestra. Last season, this tradition was continued in the production Beauty and the Beast. hetballetorkest.nl Conductor & Dutch Ballet Orchestra Koen Kessels is the new music director of Dutch National Ballet and chief-conductor of Dutch Ballet Orchestra 136 About us
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODY1MjQ=