Ragazze Quartet plays both classical and modern string quartet repertoire: inspired and on the highest level. With attractive but unconventional programmes the quartet has come to be one of the most fresh and leading voices in the world of classical music.
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16.09.24
Season 2024 - 2025

We are delighted to present our plans for cultural season 2024-2025. All the ingredients to make next season a stimulating, but sometimes also uneasy and confrontational, multidisciplinary feast are present in the programming. With various exciting (co-)productions and festival September Me, we can’t wait to present our original, multidisciplinary and engaged side on stage. In these productions, we collaborate with high-profile and inspiring creators, soloists and curators. 

 

Programming highlights are:

 

September Me – From Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 September, this festival for explorers and discoverers takes over Theater Flint in Amersfoort. The festival spotlights musicians who connect classical music to other disciplines. The theme of this festival is ‘Out of Love’, on which composers, musicians and artists reflect in creative and inspiring ways. Artist in focus in this edition is the young Scottish Brìghde Chaimbeul. She is a leading composer of experimental Celtic music and, in several performances with various musicians, plays the Scottish smallpipes: a balgan-powered bagpipe. See September Me.

 

Normality No More – In this multidisciplinary performance, Conny Janssen Danst, Via Berlin and Ragazze Quartet together explore the world of neurodivergence and pay tribute to the neurodivergent brain. Schubert’s Winterreise will form the underlying music in Normality No More, but although Ragazze Quartet already put a version for string quartet and baritone to CD, it will shake up the work considerably for this performance. The fusion of music, theatre, dance and science makes Normality No More an enchantment for all senses. The performance will premiere at Theater Rotterdam on 20 December 2024 and will tour theatres throughout the Netherlands from December 2024 to April 2025. See Normality No More.

 

The Wrong Way – In this insistent concert programme featuring Dutch Music Prize winner Thomas Beijer on piano, Ragazze Quartet explores the different paths Soviet musicians chose to relate to a dictatorial regime. Do you use your music as a counterpoint? Or, on the contrary, do you find a safe haven in music, full of lust for life and happiness? That Dmitri Shostakovich encouraged Sofia Gubaidulina to follow ‘the wrong path’ were words that kept her going in turbulent times. Shostakovich himself also deliberately sought a dangerous route in his compositions by commenting on the regime. With Shostakovich’s piano quintet and two highlights of 20th-century string quartet literature, the company will tour various venues at home and abroad in April and May 2025. The Wrong Way.

 

Memories of Trees – Memories of Trees is a visual, poetic concert in which music and image are the interpreters of a tree’s memories and history. What do the annual rings, the sounds of the leaves and branches, as well as the tree’s juices tell us about the state of nature and about the relationship with humans? The music, a new, full-length composition for string quartet and electronics, is composed by Kate Moore and is accompanied by visual elements by audiovisual artist Jurjen Alkema. Memories of Trees will premiere at Oerol 2025 and will be performed both on location and in concert venues.

 

They Have Waited Long Enough III – In this third edition of the song cycle ‘They Have Waited Long Enough’, an initiative of Wonderfeel Festival and Ragazze Quartet, soprano Katherine Dain, Raphaela Danksagmuller (duduk), Ragazze Quartet and a percussion duo perform three new compositions by female composers. The compositions are inspired by women from Greek mythology who waited far too long on the margins of the great Greek myths. In ‘They Have Waited Long Enough III’, composers Saskia Venegas, Katharine Dain along with Diamanda Dramm, and Amarante Nat will add three new songs to the cycle on the theme of ‘witches’. The lyrics are written by British writer and classicist Natalie Haynes. The pieces are dedicated to three women who were unjustly persecuted and murdered. The song cycle will premiere at Wonderfeel 2025 and will then continue touring in seizen 2025-2026. Information and more performance dates will be published on the website later this season.

 

For an overview of our programming by date, please go to our Calendar.

 

Image: Ragazze Quartet at Walden Festival, 15 July 2024 (photo taken by Frank Emmers)