Donemus Webshop — Idelenburg, Niek

Niek Idelenburg successfully graduated in 1996 in conducting and piano at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In 1997 he graduated cum laude in classical singing at the Conservatory of Utrecht.
He is the artistic director of Holland Opera and in this function he commissioned several composers. He himself arranged a number of instrumental works such as Tjaikovsky’s Swan Lake for 4 instruments and 2 singers as well as Moussorsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition into new chamber opera.
He arranged several big works by Johann Sebastian Bach for wind ensembles as Vento do Norte and Young Dutch Wind Ensemble (NBE). For the Amsterdam Bach Consort, together with writer Simon van der Geest, he arranged
the Zapp Mattheus (Bach) the Creation (Haydn) and Samson (Haendel) into a family concert. In 2019 Niek made a "reconstruction" of the eventually never by Giuseppe Verdi composed opera King Lear for Holland Opera and JongNBE.
"Thanks to" Corona, he started composing more himself. This started earlier with 'Space flight - Escape space', a production of Holland Opera in co-production with Het Houten Huis. For the same line-up as Bach's Aus der Tiefen he composed a De Profundis.
In 2020 Niek Idelenburg composed the very positively received chamber opera: "Vliegende Hollander" (Flying Dutchman) for 6 instruments and 6 singers produced by Holland Opera. In 2020 he also composed a 7-part Climate Cantate in 2 languages inspired by speeches by Greta Thunberg and tweets by Donald Trump. In line with this, he composed 3 Climate Carols for children's choir.
He is currently working on the First Ladies Songbook: 5 songs for soprano inspired by speeches of several first ladies.