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Start ticket sales!

Precisely at 12 noon on Tuesday 20 March, the ticket sales for the world’s biggest cello festival are declared open. The seventh Cello Biennale Amsterdam will have its festive opening concert on Thursday 18 October, where world stars like Giovanni Sollima and Jordi Savall, and a world premiere by Joey Roukens for eight cellos and voice will start off the festival spectacularly. Nine packed days are to follow, in all spaces of the Muziekgebouw and Bimhuis. All concerts, shows, masterclasses, presentations, and workshops can be found on www.cellobiennale.nl.

Cello Biennale one of the 29th best European music festivals

The biggest Canadian travel organisation Flightnetwork picked the Cello Biennale Amsterdam as one of the 29th best music festivals to visit during a Europe trip, as seen in their article 29 of the Best European Music Festivals for 2018. With about 800 festivals in the Netherlands alone, we are very happy with this nomination.

Hot of the press: the commissioned work for the First Round

The commissioned work for the First Round of the National Cello Competition, composed by the eightyseven-year-old Theo Loevendie, has arrived! The Dutch composer is anything but quiet. Last month his book ‘Memoires van een componist’ is published, he has various commissions for orchestral works and is a regular guest on the stage in café Welling, […]

Festival trailer online

The biggest hommage to the cello. That is what the Cello Biennale means to artist in residence Giovanni Sollima. 47 solists, 15 orchestras and ensembles, Hello Cello Orchestra, National Cello Competition, Masterclasses and more… Warm-up for the biggest cello festival in the world with our brand new trailer:  

Giovanni Sollima receives the Anner Bijlsma Award

This year the Anner Bijlsma Award will be handed out to the Italian cellist and componist Giovanni Sollima! This international award is brought to life in 2014 by Cello Biennale Amsterdam for persons or organizations who made an extraordinary and admirable effort for the cello and the cello repertoire, and is named after the first […]

Focus on Bang on a Can

In the spotlights this Cello Biennale: Bang on a Can! The famous composers trio from New York, with Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, who never see their music as separate from what’s happening in society. Thirty years ago, still very unknown, they started a marathon for new music in a small stage in Downtown […]

Registration National Cello Competition open until 1st of June

“Competitions are for horses, not for artists”, said Béla Bartók. But we know better. Winning a competition often is a stepping-stone to the major stages, the making of a first album, publicity among the audience, in other words the start of a good career. This was the path for the first six winners of the […]

Laureate Anton Mecht Spronk in Het Concertgebouw

It is going well with Anton Mecht Spronk, laureate of the National Cello Competition 2014! He won the Swiss Migros Kulturprozent competition two years in a row and as part of that he will perform as a soloist with the Rococovariations in Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam on Sunday 6 May. It’s a concert with a Swiss touch: an […]

Hello Cello Orchestra almost full!

Also this year the registrations for the Hello Cello Orchestra are going very fast. On the 16th of April the registration opened and already now there are only a few free spots! The Hello Cello Orchestra consists of 160 cello playing children and young adults from all over the Netherlands. This time the Biennale invites […]

Festival highlights

Big names, old friends, and new faces. The programme will again include many highlights with musicians, ensembles, and orchestras from 27 different countries. The artists in residence are early music specialist and Viola da Gamba player Jordi Savall and the Italian cello phenomenon Giovanni Sollima. All the way from New York, the festival welcomes new and exciting cello music by Bang on a Can, the world famous composer trio consisting of Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, who always have a way of connecting their compositions to today’s society.

Returning to the festival are solid audience favourites like Jean-Guihen Queyras, Mischa Maisky, Alban Gerhardt, Nicolas Altstaedt, and Colin Carr, along with young stars reinvited by the festival like Anastasia Kobekina, Harriet Krijgh, and Kian Soltani. Many cellists will appear at the Cello Biennale Amsterdam for the very first time, such as American/Israeli cellist Matt Haimovitz, Spanish master Arnau Tomàs, Reinhard Latzko – one of today’s most acclaimed cello pedagogues from Germany – and the young Sheku Kanneh-Mason from the UK.