Is the summer break from your regular choir or orchestra dragging on too long? Are you eager to perform beautiful concerts in a short, intensive rehearsal period? For advanced singers and instrumentalists, the Midsummer Ensemble is the ideal way to round off the summer. Under the inspiring direction of Jeroen Spitteler, the choir and orchestra prepare a challenging and appealing programme.

What’s on the programme?

The Midsummer Ensemble brings together amateur singers and instrumentalists who make music together at a high level. This gives us the opportunity to perform major works that you might not often get to tackle with your own choir or orchestra. Classics like Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s Missa from the Hohe Messe (BWV 232), Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht have all featured, but the ensemble also enjoys getting its teeth into more modern works such as Pärt’s Adam’s Lament and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Poulenc’s moving Stabat Mater.

Engaging and inspiring

The Midsummer Ensemble has a solid core of enthusiastic participants who take part regularly, but also welcomes newcomers. Making music alongside people other than your usual fellow musicians is both inspiring and instructive. The intensive rehearsals take place in a relaxed, summery atmosphere.

Rehearsals

Our concerts open the new cultural season — we perform on the last weekend of August or the first weekend of September. Rehearsals are held on several evenings and over one weekend in the two weeks leading up to the concerts, in Amsterdam. Before the summer holiday, the choir, strings, and section leaders each have one preparatory rehearsal.

Concerts

Rehearsing hard, giving one concert and then it’s all over — that feels a bit anticlimactic, doesn’t it? The Midsummer Ensemble always performs at least two concerts. And on the final day of the rehearsal weekend, we always give a free children’s concert in our rehearsal space. Have children of your own? They’re more than welcome to come and listen!

Signing up

Want to join? Send an email with your musical CV to midsummerbestuur@gmail.com. An audition may be part of the selection process.