Opening concert: Shifting Borders

Cello

South African cellist Abel Selaocoe is a versatile musician. In addition to classical performances with orchestra or in chamber music formations, he plays with beatboxers, jazz musicians, and in folk and world music formations. Together with the English jazz bassist Ali McMath and the West African percussionist Dembele Sidiki, he forms Chesaba. In 2019, Abel Selaocoe was selected for Serious Music's Take Five – a development program for highly talented jazz composers and musicians from the United Kingdom. He has also won several awards, such as the Standard Bank Young Artists Award and the Sir Karl Jenkins Award. Abel is currently following a developmental program with Giovanni Sollima for cellists who want to do more than just playing the familiar repertoire very well, which was set up with the prize money of the Anner Bijlsma Award. 

Amsterdam Sinfonietta was founded in 1988 with Lev Markiz as the first Artistic Director. Candida Thompson has been the orchestra’s concertmaster since 1995 and became the Artistic Director in 2003. Throughout the past decades, Amsterdam Sinfonietta has grown into a regular guest at European concert halls and festivals. Amsterdam Sinfonietta has played a prominent role at the Cello Biënnale since the first edition in 2006, often giving world premieres of pieces by composers such as Dobrinka Tabakova, Pēteris Vasks, and David Lang.  Amsterdam Sinfonietta is characterised by its innovative programming. In addition to the core string repertoire, the orchestra brings original and exciting combinations of pieces, connects early and contemporary music, well-known and unknown repertoire. The orchestra commissions compositions and arrangements. It enters into unexpected collaborations and performs groundbreaking programmes, often including film, dance, and theatre. Amsterdam Sinfonietta has recorded various CDs under the label BIS, including Mendelssohn’s complete string symphonies, as well as 14 CDs since 2004 under their regular label Channel Classics, including The Mahler Album, The Argentinian Album, Lento Religioso, a collection of short arrangements for string orchestra, and Formidable, a collection of French chansons with baritone Thomas Oliemans. The orchestra has also recorded under the labels ECM, Sony Classical, and Deutsche Grammophon. Their first classical music film Strings saw its premiere in March 2020, followed by the releases of the films Misirlou (traditional), Atashgah (Jacobsen), and Tango (Piazzolla).

Candida Thompson graduated in 1989 with distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in Lonodn as a student of David Takeno, and continued her education at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. She has led string orchestras in Scandinavia, The Netherlands, and Great Britain. She has performed in chamber settings with musicians such as Isaac Stern, Bruno Giuranna, Frans Helmerson, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, and at festivals including the Kuhmo Festival (Finland), the Gubbio Festival (Italy), and the Delft Chamber Music Festival. She forms the Hamlet Piano Trio with cellist Xenia Jankovic and pianist Paolo Giacometti. She has been the concertmaster of Amsterdam Sinfonietta since 1995, and their Artistic Director since 2003. Candida plays a Guarneri del Gesù (1698-1744) kindly on loan from a private collector.