Royal Brass Band Sainte Cecile Celebrates With André Rieu

Royal Brass Band Sainte Cecile  

Celebrates Together With André Rieu

The Limburger: July 19, 2019 by Rob Cobben

Next Sunday André Rieu will perform his one hundredth concert on the Vrijthof square in Maastricht. The Royal Marching Band Sainte Cécile celebrates the party with him. The Marching Band which hails from Eijsden (town) provides the support and atmosphere before every concert.

Long Si Drummen had already heard many stories about the Vrijthof concerts from her colleagues. "And they were all positive," says the eighteen-year-old clarinetist from Eijsden. "It made me very curious."

On Thursday, July 4, she was allowed to join the Vrijthof performance for the first time. Making music for almost 11,000 people who are waiting for the concert of Maastricht's most famous resident, André Rieu, and his Johann Strauss Orchestra. "All those stories were just right," Drummen says. She has already had ten performances in the meantime and will be there also on Saturday and Sunday evening, when André Rieu will perform his 99th and 100th concert on the square in Maastricht. "It is very special. You play for people who are very enthusiastic. That is very different from performing in a competition or somewhere else.

Ruud Waterval, who plays the big drum with the royal marching band from Eijsden, nods affirmatively. He missed only one of all Rieu's concerts in the last fifteen years, because he was on vacation at the time. "It is a cheerful event, we can radiate pleasure when we make our rounds on the square. And that is very different from when we participate in a procession. We then must be serious. "

The 51-year-old Waterval also finds the contact with the musicians of Rieu’s orchestra very special. "Many of them once started to play with a brass/marching band. We get a lot of appreciation from them. ”

The roughly one hundred musicians from Sainte Cécile are picked up at each concert day at 7:30 PM from the Eijsden Cultural Center with two Rieu buses. They take them to the Kruisheren hotel in Maastricht, where the fans with a VIP package stay. At 8 PM, the Eijsden musicians start their march and walk with the VIP guests in their wake to the Vrijthof. While playing music the band makes two rounds between the audience on the square and then along the people who are having dinner on the terraces and along the platform of the "Theater on the Vrijthof" where the maestro can be seen by his fans. The Eijsden musicians walk exactly 1.7 kilometers every evening, while they play a various repertoire of marching music. "It is hard work," says Waterval. "When I'm done, I'm soaked in sweat. But it is worth it. You get so much positive energy from all those happy people ... They sometimes follow us and want to take a picture with us. "

"The Rieu concerts are very important for Sainte Cécile", says board member Huub Rompelberg. "It is an excellent advertisement for our association and it also provides us with new contacts and performances," says Rompelberg. The clubhouse also benefits, although Rompelberg does not want to reveal how much the band receives for the performances at the Vrijthof square.

André Rieu has been an honorary board member of the Eijsden brass/marching band since 2005. The same year he also gave his first open-air concert in his hometown and Sainte Cécile was the first to perform. "Then we sat together, went through the program and rehearsed under his watchful eye. In the following years that was no longer necessary.

Thank You to Ineke for the Translation