Now Everybody Whistle "Happy Birthday" To André!!
9/26/04
12/9/03
Participating Cinemas ~ Enjoy the magic of André Rieu captured live in concert on the big screen in 2011. See André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra captured LIVE from Maastricht, The Netherlands, at your participating cinemas across North America.Stay tuned for cinema announcements! Canada Locations Coming Soon!
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9/15/03
Ruud, Henriette (Mirusia's Mum) and Ineke Ineke's Wonderful Weekend in Brussels and André's Concert
We had a great weekend in Gemma and Nand's home (near Antwerp) and in Brussels. We had the company of three Viennese maids of honor from the Imperial Family of Sisi and Franz Josef: Lady Monique, Janny and Thea. They rented their ball gowns to have that very special feeling of being a princess! We had great fun helping them dress up. They had lots of petticoats and hoops on that made it hard to go to the bathroom, or to enter a car .... Unfortunately we did not have an elegant footman and a carriage available!
The Romantic Viennese night was wonderful as usual. Standing ovations for the Platin tenors and Mirusia. We have seen the concert several times by now, but every time it is a wonderful feeling to be there. The palace was smaller than in Toronto. Toronto had the full glory!! Stadiums are not built for concerts, so it is unavoidable there is an echo. Even Andre's crew could not get rid of it! Because Belgium is a bilingual country, Andre talked in French and Dutch. Sometimes he started the sentence in French and ended the same sentence in Dutch! The real world champion figure skaters, Aljona and Robin were there, the Viennese ballet with Jurgen and Simona as star dancers, Suzan as Sisi, horses, carriage ...
Rumors we heard (talking to some people of the crew): Andre has 4 castles now. Technicians are working on them to make them more and more suitable for traveling, to shorten the time of building it up and tearing it down.
Kerstin has a Baby Daughter!! And Heidi Pitti (choir) also has a Baby Daughter.
The day of the concert was a cold and rainy Saturday! The Boudewijn Stadium is open air (33.000 people in the audience) and the ladies froze in their ball gowns. Fortunately though, it was dry at night for the concert! The ladies drew a lot of attention, people wanted to take pictures with them, they were interviewed by Belgian and Dutch TV, telling them all the time they did it just for fun to uplift the Viennese atmosphere, being great fans of Andre and his music.
At the end of the concert we waited to let the flow of people depart. A few Dutch women approached the ball gown ladies and I asked them who they are, for I did not know them and apparently they were great fans and guess what?? The biggest surprise of the evening ~ it was Mirusia's mother Henriette (from Holland, living in Brisbane Australia), with her Australian friend, her Dutch sister and her Dutch mother in a wheelchair! Wow! Was that a surprise! I have often mailed to Henriette but never met her and she recognized Ruud and I immediately. She gave me permission to post her photo. Mirusia came to get her, to lead her to Andre behind the scenes. How exciting! I just asked if we could follow them, but that was a joke....... (However???)
Driving home in another hour, we returned to Gemma's house, where we all stayed overnight. We were cold and hungry and we sat down eating Belgian waffles, tart and slices of bread, drinking coffee, tea and wine, at 3 AM!! Nand even put on the heating system of the house! I had never been eating and drinking in the middle of the night before in my whole life!
The next day was a beautiful sunny day and we left again for Holland. We hade a great time and Gemma and Nand are wonderful people, just as the Dutch Rieu-girlzzz. Great friends forever ~ Amigos para siempre!! ... Thanks to Andre!
Ineke
2/20/03
André Rieu Almost Had To Let His Orchestra Go
André Rieu almost went under due to a dream. His tour through Australia in 2008 almost did him and his orchestra in. "I do not mind dying poor," says the 60 year old violin virtuoso, "but it came too close, to the point that I almost had to dismiss all my orchestra members. It was really too intense".Dressed in a long elegant coat, umbrella above his head, André Rieu is waiting for me in a snow shower at the train station of Maastricht. The immaculately dressed gentleman is quite noticeable in the city which is still full of Carnival atmosphere. "My financial adviser predicted all this. The year end financial figures are now out and there will be a storm of comments."
André gallantly opened the door of his Mercedes. He waves to a seemingly lost person dressed up as a dance puppet in thick tights who is being supported by a person dressed up as a drummer wearing a party hat. They look at him empathically. All of Maastricht sympathizes with their fellow citizen, who this year will turn the Vrijthof no less than Eight Times upside down.
This is the only interview he has given over his now happily passed dramatic low point of his financial situation. "The crazy thing is. I have been able to process everything. It's now sixteen months later and we are almost even. I am also a little proud of that. We were so deeply in debt that we needed a loan of 23 million Euros from the Rabobank. Now almost everything has been repaid. Quietly we crept along the edge of the abyss. It could have been be a tragedy, but it is past now."
On the way to his stately work castle he speaks relaxed while steering through the city. "If we had spent 23 million Euros hanging posters throughout the world, we would not have had a greater marketing effect as we do now. I have to admit: it was very extreme. I had to promise Marjorie and the gentlemen from the bank that I will never do that again. But the world is now at our feet. We are even negotiating a Major Tour through America. Michael Jackson's manager and the gentleman from the record company were here this week."
"My son Pierre arranged everything. He said they will come here, we do not have to go there for an audition. That way they are really interested. Pierre has the business talent, I am the dreamer. The intent is to perform in Forty Stadiums in America where we can place the Schönbrunn Castle."
Weren't These Castles The Cause of Your Financial Problems?
.
"Correct, but they are already built, yes? Close by I have seven million Euros worth steel stored. We now even have three castles. A prototype and two that are more automated and require less manpower to build. The millions were flying out the door. There was no holding back. And at the end we still had to build one more castle because we could not transport the things fast enough from one side of Australia to the other. Well, there went another three million Euros. And then we had to swallow some more, because a beautiful castle made out of Styrofoam was rejected by the fire department. We paid a thousand for a foam press we purchased. Well, that was only the beginning."
In his own castle, sitting by the crackling fireplace in elegant French furniture, André Rieu ponders for a moment. He points to an oval table with about eight chairs around it. "That's where the bankers were. They came from Utrecht, the gentlemen from Maastricht could do no more for us. We talked for an entire day. It was just prior to the beginning of the Australian tour. I needed a lot more money so I could go. We had to go, we had sold 270,000 tickets. Everything was ready. Yes, everything was perfect. We flew the Viennese ballet over, six white Lipizzaner horses, we had a Golden Carriage, fountains were built just like the real ones in front of the Schönbrunn Castle. There were people who asked me, did you really need the ballet from Vienna? Aren't there also dancers in Australia? And Ivo Niehe, who came along to Melbourne, was amazed that I had perfect tenors in the show, but I'm a perfectionist. I wanted to achieve my dreams and leave the people breathless. That again was achieved".
Continuation: "Pierre wants to make his father happy. And will do everything possible to make the stories in my head a realization. But with this project, I might have gone a bit too far. He was stressed out quite a bit by all this work. Instinctively I also felt that I gone too far. When we had to bring the bankers here, I said to Marjorie, "I do not have to die rich", but now I see that it is nice to have some money for our care for when we are old. As long as I do not need to go to a nursing home, where a lovely nurse determines if and when I should go to the toilet".
André Rieu ponders on, "One of the bankers suggested that we should cancel the tour to Australia and not go. But that was not possible. There was already so much money invested, the tickets were sold. If we had not gone, we all would definitely have gone bankrupt and I would have to let every one go. And then I would have had no means to earn everything back. I would just be back at square one. Twenty years ago I had a job with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and an ordinary house, that was then my future. So now I had to give everything I owned as collateral, the Real Estate, the Cars, the Articles, the Stradivarius ... I was totally stripped. But there was still a Six Million Euro deficit."
He smiles triumphantly, "The bankers moaned and I thought, it is now or never. In half an hour's time I managed to get six million euros together via the telephone. I managed to get Three Million out of my Recording Company since I could shift the rights of a number of DVD's to them. And I called my German Promoter and said, "Is it worth Three Million Euros to you if I sign for an additional three years?" I immediately received a resounding "yes". That sort of made the bankers take note, but they did not immediately say that was alright. They let us sweat for about four days."
Were You Able To Sleep During Those Days?
"I always sleep. I can very easily turn my thoughts off. Even just before a concert I take a nap because I feel I should give my energy to the orchestra. That way we all can give a new top performance. You might do some strange thinking though. I came to the conclusion that losing money and things were not the worst that could happen. Marjorie and the boys were still here, but I have to admit, it really was a little too exciting. When the "yes" answer was received from Utrecht, we did raise a glass. Nothing exorbitant because the great recovery had to begin. They told me very sternly, "now you have to play a few years longer Mr. Rieu, but I was already planning to do that. And so we received a double stroke of luck. We sold more tickets than expected, the DVD sales were great. We could constantly maintain 11 million above our limit of 23 million. And now, thanks to a bumper year last year, I'm almost completely out of debt.".
."The Orchestra Members did not notice how bad the financial situation was. I told them everything, but it was I alone who took the entire risk. I did not ask them whether they wanted to play for less or anything like that. I was responsible and they trusted me. This has made our orchestra even closer."
.André Rieu even put up his Stradivarius as collateral. "I was being positive. I was counting on possibly buying her back in a few years. And no matter how much I love that violin, it is and remains only a thing. Actually it is one of the
last violins made by the violin master, Stradivarius. It was built in 1732 and is a larger violin. I already had a Stradivarius, which was much smaller, from his earlier years. During the course of his career Stradivarius developed larger instruments because the rooms were becoming larger and louder acoustics were needed from the body. I brought my violin back to the dealer in Vienna and he put a sales price of Three Million Euros on it. I had secretly added One Million to the bank's imposed value of Two Million since naturally, I really did not want to part with it, and I got to keep it".He shrugs his shoulders, "When we started doing well fifteen years ago, I could have my pick amongst the violins. A week after the death of Yehudi Menuhin, I had his violin right here in my house, but this instrument I found was too classical, too serious, too cold. My violin is melodious and warm, more suited for the waltz."
André Rieu chuckles, "It is not really the first time that I have given everything as collateral to the bank. In the very beginning it was all about eighty thousand guilders. That was for my first sound system when I was still traveling with the Salon Orchestra, and went to perform in all sort of parties.
It only took one month, but even the birds in the aviary belonged to the bank".
What Is The Difference Between Your Misfortune and That of Marco Borsato? "I almost totally blundered on the Castles I built, but the eccentric decorations have made for so much publicity that I am now on the U.S. lists as the Best Selling Male Artist in The World. Marco's Company bought other companies that did not do too well. I stayed my course with something I could do well. Now that Marco is doing that too, he is doing much better."
André Rieu promised he will never again build Castles, but son Pierre is now working to see if he can reproduce the entire Vrijthof. André Rieu chuckles, "That's right, this year I will perform Eight Times in the Open Air on The Vrijthof. Marjorie has said, and rightly so, that I obviously cannot always be lucky with the weather. In Brisbane we nearly lost another 3 million because we almost had to cancel due to a storm, but it stopped blowing. Anyway, we are now looking at what we can do inside the Congress Center of the MECC in Maastricht. Pierre has already built a piece of the Vrijthof, it could cost as much as 1 Million Euros, but that of course is way too much. Pierre is now working with sponsors. He wants to save his father from another financial dilemma."
The violin virtuoso smiles, "Marjorie's father was a Jewish fugitive. During his life, he lost his entire fortune twice. Once in World War I and once in World War II and his life was in danger. That is no comparison to what we have experienced." ... By Wilma Nanninga
5/21/02
Music Changes Lives- the Hout Bay Music Project and André Rieu
Maastricht, Netherlands, July 2010
Lwazi Mkula, aged 18, greets a visitor in the bustling lobby of the Vrijthof Theatre in Maastricht, Netherlands on a warm summer evening. A courteous young man with a level gaze, Mr. Mkula was born under apartheid in South Africa. Since joining the tiny Hout Bay Music Project seven years ago, however, his life has taken a remarkable direction thanks to remarkable teachers and his dedication to classical music studies. Today, Mr. Mkula is the first member of his family to attend college. At Cape Town University, he is majoring in music and law, and is teaching younger children at the same Music Project in the Eastern Cape Informal Township that is his home. By all accounts, he would not be where he is today without the support and music education he received at the Hout Bay Music Project.
At the moment, however, Mr. Mkula has other immediate things on his hands. Streaming into the Theatre close on his heels come a gaggle of energetic children, supervised by a few exhausted-looking adults. After a day of playing football outdoors at a nearby Limburg farm, these young members of the Hout Bay Music Project need to have dinner, focus their attention and prepare for their featured role in this evening’s concert on the Vrijthof plaza in Maastricht, with world-famous Dutch violinist André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra.
Maastricht is known as the most Burgundian of cities in the Netherlands, with its multicultural history, large international population and a love of gatherings of any kind. The fact that it is also the home town of Mr. Rieu, who grew up in Maastricht and still lives there, makes it the perfect location for this lively concert series that dominates the old section of the city for two weeks in the summer and thousands of attracts visitors from all over the world. André Rieu and the Orchestra are well known for their ability to get the audience on their feet, singing along and dancing in the aisles. What might be less expected is that a small group of children between the ages of nine and eighteen, from a rural area of the Eastern Cape, would also be so joyfully confident performing in front of an audience of 10,000 each night during the concert series titled “My African Dream”.
RANGING FROM ENTHUSIASTIC TO IRREPRESSIBLE
The Hout Bay Music Project Trust, like most successful creations, is based on a brilliantly simple idea - that music changes lives. A non-profit organization founded in 2003 by Leanne Dollman, a cheerful young woman with an infectious laugh, the Project now provides music education, life skills training and preparation for British Music Examinations to about 100 children in the Imizamo Yethu Settlement and Hangberg Harbor community in Hout Bay, South Africa. The Project offers daily music classes in a former bowling green clubhouse in Hout Bay, or outside on the grass. Every day, students experience the joy of music through classes in violin, cello, double bass, marimba and drums, as well as training in dance, singing and life skills. The Project is proud of its 100% pass rate in all practical and theoretical examinationsthrough the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, UK, which has helped the first cohort of students enter university this past year.
A classically trained violinist who has performed as a freelance artist with symphonies and chamber groups, Ms. Dollman tells an interviewer she initially “wanted to teach about 3-4 children.” In 2003, she visited the Moravian Primary School in the Imizamo Yethu Informal Township to talk about starting a small afterschool program. As she relates the story, all of the students were gathered and standing outside the school. When asked by their principal how many students would be interested in learning to play the violin, all 800 children enthusiastically replied that they would! Ms. Dollman explains that music is a big part of the culture for these students, who speak Xhosa “click” language at home as well as Afrikaans and English. The children, who at that time were mostly still living in shacks in this rural area on the Eastern Cape, thought they would each get a violin. She laughs as she describes the school principal’s initial puzzlement at her plans to teach 800 students without having any instruments available for them at all!
Ms. Dollman persisted and obtained Chinese violins made from kits. Initially she started teaching about 25-30 children, and now has 100 students ranging in age from three years old to 18, some of whom have studied music for six to seven years. With the growth and success of the program, the Project now has two other part-time faculty who teach double bass and cello. One faculty member, John Ntsepe is the first Black pianist with a Master’s Degree in Music in South Africa. In addition, a Dutch violin teacher will spend the next year in South Africa on a fellowship. The Music Project has gained a degree of renown in South Africa, has enlisted consistent supporters including Trevor Manuel, Minister in The Presidency, and has performed for G-20 Summits and other high-profile events. Fundraising and paying for staff and instruments remains a constant challenge for the independent non-profit.
Ms. Dollman describes being contacted by a member of Mr. Rieu’s staff during the Johann Strauss Orchestra’s first South African tour, in May of 2010. The Maestro and several staff and orchestra members visited the little music school between concerts. The children performed some music and dance numbers, and Mr. Rieu and his entourage were charmed and invited to the entire group to Maastricht to perform with the orchestra in July. The fact that the students were not sure where Maastricht was located, or even Holland for that matter, did not dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.
The next two months were filled with the challenge of obtaining passports for the children, many of whom had never been registered at birth, and many of whose parents had never married. Despite Mr. Rieu’s speaking with the Dutch Prime Minister to enlist his help in expediting the passports, Ms. Dollman and a lawyer friend spent countless hours knocking on doors of homes that lacked telephones to gather the necessary paperwork. Finally, 20 children and five adults arrived in the Netherlands on July 6, 2010 to start rehearsals for the series of performances on the Vrijthof Plaza.
When asked how the children reacted to traveling in Europe for the first time, Ms. Dollman smiles and quotes Project supporter David Juritz, Director of Musequality UK, who says they "range from enthusiastic to irrepressible”. She says the children enjoyed not only performing in the Netherlands but also the catered meals (very different from the mostly meat they usually eat at home), staying on a farm and visiting local attractions courtesy of André Rieu. Ms. Dollman expresses her gratitude to the generosity of the Rieu organization, which not only brought the Music Project to the Netherlands for the concert series but also plans to continue to help them with instrument donations and other ongoing support and collaboration during future South African tours.
Ms. Dollman says that Mr. Rieu had spoken to the City Council in Hout Bay to assist with putting up more buildings for classrooms, and had also said in television interviews that he plans to start a miniature Johann Strauss Orchestra for the children. It remains to be seen whether Rieu, who constantly tours several continents with his 55-piece orchestra and issues several chart-topping recordings each year will be able to devote that much time to the fledgling orchestra himself. This is, after all, a tiny non-profit with little government support, very unlike the wildly successful “El Sistema” that was started in Venezuela and now is being replicated in the United States. But Mr. Rieu’s interest in making music more accessible for all in South Africa seems genuine, and it is possible that the grassroots nature of the Hout Bay Music Project is its greatest strength as it enables it to attract a variety of supporters while retaining its original form.
“A Very Emotional Tour” ...
In June 2010, during the Johann Strauss Orchestra’s American tour, André Rieu described their first engagement in South Africa, just a month before, as “a very emotional tour”. In a prior promotional visit to South Africa, Mr. Rieu had sensed racial imbalance, and decided to recruit a Black South African soprano to join the South African tour. After viewing her audition tape, the Maestro brought the classically-trained Kimi Skota to Maastricht for rehearsals. Rieu proudly stated of the shy young woman with the operatic voice “I discovered her.”
However, the white supremacist Terre Blanche had been murdered just two weeks before the Orchestra arrived in Durban, and Rieu was not sure how Ms. Skota and the Orchestra would be received. Rieu described himself as being “very nervous” until Ms. Skota stepped on stage, at which point the audience gave her a standing ovation before she even started singing.
Mr. Rieu said that his wife Marjorie had asked the singer during rehearsals, “Don’t you know a song that everyone knows, both Black and white?” Kimi Skota had chosen a lullaby that Black nannies used to sing to the white babies in their care. As Rieu described it, he looked out into the auditorium during the first concert in Durban and “the whole audience was crying. So of course, seeing that, we started crying too!” The concert series was a smash hit, and Mr. Rieu felt he had achieved his goal in South Africa, that of bringing people together to enjoy music regardless of color. He decided to engage Ms. Skota for the American tour and beyond. And he decided to bring the Hout Bay Music Project to Maastricht, along with the Bloemfontein Children’s Choir to support the Michael Jackson song “Heal the World”. The series of concerts in Rieu’s home town of Maastricht began to take shape, under the title “My African Dream.”
MY AFRICAN DREAM
Back on the steps of the elegant Vrijthof Theatre in Maastricht, music fans from many countries have gathered on this balmy summer evening, awaiting the start of one of the annual outdoor concerts on the huge plaza. Cameras ready, fans chatter in many languages as they hope to catch a glimpse of the famous violinist and a few members of his orchestra. A sudden shower, however, sends them scurrying for shelter; some make their way into the lobby of the Theatre where they are met with piercing and joyful singing, whooping and clapping that echoes from above. Voices of children swell in distinctly African tonalities as they rehearse on a loggia above the lobby. Next they break into a rousing rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, with handclaps and African drums. The Hout Bay Music Project is warming up.
The rain passes and the fans make their way outside again. Maestro Rieu and a few elegantly-dressed musicians from his orchestra step out and begin tuning their instruments. Cameras click and fans smile and wave. Rieu staff members hover nearby, along with members of a German television crew filming the concert. Each musician tunes his or her instrument in turn to Mr. Rieu’s Stradivarius. Just above the Theatre entrance, the children from the Hout Bay Music Project are clustered on a balcony, shyly regarding the crowd below. Their faces are decorated for the performance with tribal markings. When they spy a couple with a South African flag, the children wave and their countrymen wave back. As Maestro Rieu passes the crowd on his way to the stage, he salutes the South African couple as well. Eric and Marie Dyer of Durban tell a visitor “Mr. Rieu has a very kind heart” for assisting the Hout Bay Music Project. They quote a South African promoter who said that “André Rieu is not aware of the happiness he has brought to South Africa” with his recent concert series.
By 11:00 p.m. that night, the rousing concert is almost halfway through. The sun had come out again and then slowly set in a long midsummer sunset. The huge audience has already been on their feet several times, for lovely clarinet and cello solos, a lively version of “O Sole Mio” by the Platin Tenors, and a moving rendition of “Ave Maria” by Kimi Skota, complete with a projected backdrop of stained glass windows. With visible pride, Maestro Rieu introduces the Hout Bay Music Project from South Africa and describes how impressed he is by their “talent and enthusiasm.”
Holding their instruments and wearing colorful outfits and headbands, the children file onstage and begin to play. They perform a creditable rendition (for their ages) of the Pachelbel Canon in D, with assistance from Ms. Dollman and a few members of the Johann Strauss Orchestra strings section. For the final few bars, the younger children join in softly on African drums. Next, they turn up the heat. The group breaks into African song, dance and drumming numbers which bring the audience to their feet again. One lively girl of twelve mesmerizes the audience with her natural solo voice and African dance moves. Against a backdrop of an African sunset, the song “My African Dream” led by sopranos and tenors, with the Music Project and Bloemfontein Children’s Choir ranged across the front of the stage, is cheered by the huge audience.
After the concert, Eric and Marie Dyer from Durban said “We enjoyed the show tremendously. We were particularly touched by the African theme coming from South Africa. There were many tears during the show.” The collaboration between the European orchestra, originally known for its popular renditions of Strauss waltzes, and the South African children studying European classical music appeared to be a rousing success.
THE FUTURE FOR THE HOUT BAY MUSIC PROJECT
The Hout Bay Music Project appears to have a future as bright as that of the children who study there. Thomas Diamandis, the choreographer for André Rieu who worked with many children’s choirs in three continents during the orchestra’s recent tours, feels the Hout Bay Music Project is something special and has a big future in the music world. He says the Project “is just amazing ... there are no words to explain it ... and as performers they remain in your mind.”
Upcoming plans for the Hout Bay Music Project include a collaboration with the composer Michael Blake, who will compose a piece about the history of the Hout Bay area, with the students composing a part of it. In October 2010, the students participated in the Spielhaus Fesitval at the St. Polten Theatre in Austria, which includes 300 children from all around Europe. And in March of 2011 André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra, with guest artists likely to include the Hout Bay Music Project, will appear again in Cape Town where Nelson Mandela spoke at the end of apartheid 16 years ago.
- Jennifer Dawson writes about children in the arts, and is based in Boston, USA.
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