Unknown Person Passing as André Rieu's Son

Two Articles Today in de Limburger of Rieu Going To North Pole

Deception: An unknown person has been passing him/herself as the son of the orchestra leader André Rieu for the last two years.

 Maastricht Limburger, by Casper Cillekens: Pierre Rieu, son of the Maastricht orchestra leader André Rieu has for the past two years been bothered by a person claiming to be Pierre Rieu. A florist received an order to deliver flowers for the concert series on the Vrijthof. "He called: Where is my money? He had already started to deliver the flowers." According to Pierre Rieu, his father’s spokesperson, has experienced where people have been promised free concert tickets for the Vrijthof Concerts. "It is very troublesome when people approach us for these promises." Whether it is one and the same person, is not quite clear. This person is using a Rieu group mailing address. "We know the origin of the mail, but I will not disclose that." Pierre Rieu and the ANP (General Dutch News Agency) are keeping each other informed during their investigation of the "fake-Rieu." The ANP received a mail on Wednesday evening about the fact that André would perform a concert next year on the North Pole. Such a plan Rieu had been launched in 2009. Since the ANP found the mail and telephone explanation of the "so-called" Pierre Rieu credible, the press office put the story on the net. But that was withdrawn yesterday. "So far we have seen no reason to file a complaint," says Pierre Rieu.

Second Article in de Limburger Today by Casper Cillekens

Message from the ANP news agency about the alleged concert by the Maastricht orchestra leader was "very credible."

"André Rieu would still like to go to the North Pole"

A web site would be erected where interested people come Monday could register for André Rieu’s North Pole concert to take place next year. The price for a ticket: 35 thousand. It all seemed fake.

Quite cunning. That is what Johan Groeneveld, deputy editor of the ANP, said about the manner in which an unknown person mislead the news office about the concert which the Maastricht orchestra leader André Rieu would perform next year August 18th on the North Pole. The e-mail which we received had a return address of communications@andrerieu.com. The telephone number displayed on the e-mail also reflected to be from Rieu Productions. When the on-call editor started checking the facts, she was called by a person stating he was Pierre Rieu. He sounded convincing, knew a lot of details and spoke with a Limburg accent. He called back one more time. To ask whether we had all the information. It was a plausible story. It sounded believable." The ANP placed the information about the North Pole concert on the net around one on Thursday morning. That also automatically landed on the web sites of many news media, including this news agency. Yesterday morning when our news media had called Pierre Rieu, son and spokes person of the orchestra leader, it appeared to be a joke. "We stepped into that one" sighed Groeneveld. "The ANP receives information several times a week which does not seem to be valid. Our standard is that we check everything. Sometimes we leave information received during the evening until the next morning. Again, in this case it was very believable. I myself would have placed this information." 

The information about the concert did not completely drop out of the sky. André Rieu had back in 2009 indicated that a North Pole concert would be performed, in order to bring awareness to the melting of the ice cap. It was, says Pierre as an addition, the intention to use ice-breakers in order to go to the North Pole. But since in 2009 there were only two dilapidated Russian ice breakers available, André Rieu placed that idea in the "ice box" (Back burner) "The damaged which would have been created by these ships, would possibly be greater than the attention you were trying to generate." "Very annoying that something like this has happened," sighs Pierre." But who knows: maybe this fake news might regenerate the idea. Maybe a wealthy sponsor might want to stick some money into it. We have not given up on the idea. A plus of course is that organizations like WWF and Greenpeace agree with us. If it happens to become reality, we will take one couple from each country of the world directly to the center of the North Pole."

Thank You to John for finding these tonight and translating them.