1st organ concert: Adriaan Hoek & Amelie Held

»Passion is the soul of music after all«. Josef Gabriel Rheinberger recognised this, and our concert starts with one of hie pieces – initially with the up-and-coming Dutch composer Adriaan Hoek, who has been the new city organist of Rotterdam since 2022 and who will play with our First Concertmaster here! Rheinberger captured romantic feelings in the unique soundscape of violin and organ in his Overture from 1887. Likewise a bravura piece for this rare combination is the »Capriccio« by Lebanese-French composer Naji Hakim, written in 2005. Originally composed by Reger in 1899, the sonata appears more like an individual suite. For the second part of this concert, we welcome Karlsruhe-born organist Amelie Held. She also performs together with a colleague from Bamberg, our horn player Swantje Vesper. As a 16-year-old in 1891, Charles Ives gave an organ recital in New York for the American Independence Day, he improvised on the patriotic song »America« and wrote it down shortly afterwards. Jan Koetsier’s atmospheric choral fantasy is based on a comforting church hymn that also refers to sighs of the soul. With a machine-like momentum, the wild Toccata op. 11 takes us into Prokofiev’s world of the year 1912. Camille Saint-Saëns began his career as an organist, which inspired him to write wonderful works such as the Andante for horn and organ. Then, for the virtuoso finale, the spectacular piece »Pageant« by the American Leo Sowerby, who died in 1968 – in which performers may give their heart and soul to whirling around on the keys and pedals.