ANDRÉ RIEU An Unforgettable Day in Amsterdam

An Unforgettable Day in Amsterdam

Chapeau Magazine: June/July - André Rieu Column - What a day, April 30th. I don’t think we will not soon forget that day. When you travel with your orchestra all over the world for so many years, you experience a lot. We perform abroad much more than we do in the Netherlands. But the special concert on the Museum Square in Amsterdam at the conclusion of the coronation festivities was for us quite unique. 

Such a coronation is a historical event, and even very beautiful and impressive. When you are asked to participate in such an event, you feel very honored. I am truly very proud that I and my orchestra were allowed to perform there. Images were shown all over the world. That is really something! For many people abroad we will still and often be associated with the coronation of Willem-Alexander to King. And in Argentina, where we will be performing shortly, especially of course with Queen Maxima. I love it, and will with pleasure and pride play there our "Coronation Waltz", complete with images of the inauguration.  

I am already looking forward to it! 

The day before the concert I was received in the Palace on the Dam and introduced to Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima. They were very nice and quite "normal" in as far as you can call the future King and Queen "normal". They were very open and spontaneous and wished me luck for the concert the next day. They are of course surrounded by protocol, but in spite of this they are very spontaneous people. I noticed that too with Queen Beatrix, when we performed for her several years ago in the caves of Valkenburg. I kept strictly to the by protocol prescribed time, and when the concert came to an end, the Queen very spontaneously from the first row said; "Oh, what a shame! As far as I am concerned, you could have continued on for quite some time yet."

Of course I wanted to do something very special with the concert in Amsterdam, and adapted the program completely to the occasion. In order to thank Queen Beatrix, we played the beautiful song "Time to say Goodbye", with images out of her live on the screen as Princess, Crown-Princess and Queen – I noticed that the audience listened with a lot of emotion – and specially for our new Queen Maxima, the most beautiful song I know about Argentina: "Don’t cry for me Argentina" from the musical "Evita" by Andrew Lloyd Webber. No one sings these songs more impressive than the Australian Soprano Mirusia Louwerse with her beautiful voice and tremendous acting talent, so I flew her over from Australia, especially for this evening. With André van Duijn, there is always laughter, lovely. Also again that evening with "Willempie" and "Orange on High". Martijn Fisher, who rendered the voice of Amsterdam’s André Hazes, impressed me deeply.

The mood on the square was immediately fantastic, despite the cold. The temperature was around four degrees (39F) with an icy wind. The entire orchestra had cold fingers – me too, and that makes violin playing not so easy – but the audience jumped and sang themselves warm, and after a few numbers we were not so cold any more either. It became a unique happening, really a real big "Orange Festivity". Just prior, ten Royal Air Force jets did a fly-over, which I thought was very impressive. You noticed immediately that this would become a very special concert, and that is how we all experienced it, the orchestra, the audience and almost five million Dutch TV viewers!

The next day it rained congratulations, and that of course makes you feel tremendously well. Not only did the audience in front of us enjoy themselves that evening, but apparently everyone else at home did too. I found the reaction of old Chamber president Gerdie Verbeet during an interview with "De Wereld Draait Door" (The World continues to Turn) heartwarming. She had became chilled during the coronation, so she said, but during the evening with her partner wrapped in a blanket on a bench while attending André Rieu’s concert, that was heavenly. That had totally warmed her up again. She was still glowing with enthusiasm when she relayed the story.

     Gerdi, thank you very much!!

    André Rieu

Thanks to Ineke for sending this to us and John for Translating it!