André de Ridder is "one of the most daring conductors in the world", a critic once wrote. In fact, the German, born in 1971, does not seem to shy away from anything: not from radical contemporary scores, not from the great works of the past. And certainly not from crossing stylistic boundaries that have never played a role for him.
Opera and orchestral music, jazz and electronics, avant-garde experiments and independent pop: André de Ridder gets involved with anything that arouses his curiosity. He does so at major classical venues and in all kinds of clubs, with illustrious ensembles or surprising allies. He has already worked with jazz pianist Uri Caine, electronic duo Mouse on Mars and last year's Creative Chair Bryce Dessner from The National.
For his projects, he founded the stargaze collective, which has a preference for the "unclassifiable" or takes a new perspective on the familiar. His adaptations of Beethoven symphonies, whose motifs were musically or visually extended, altered and scrutinised by artists from very different cultural backgrounds, caused a particular stir.
On the other hand, André de Ridder has been General Music Director of the theatre in Freiburg im Breisgau since summer 2022, making him the head of a thoroughly traditional institution. Here he conducts Verdi's "Don Carlos" and Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel", and in symphonic concerts he puts Mahler's Symphony No. 5 or Beethoven's Violin Concerto on the programme. But of course, contemporary music carries more weight under his direction than it used to, even more than usual in a municipal theatre. Above all, however, he knows no stylistic boundaries here either: he lets the orchestra roam the city's clubs, where it performs as a "noble support band" for the gigs of various formations and naturally also joins forces with them.
So it is no wonder that he has put together a purely contemporary programme for his first concert with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, which was conceived in conjunction with the Sonic Matter festival - and at the same time opens a window into the past with Nico Muhly's "Register". This organ concert is based on a harmonic sequence by Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons: a bridge across the centuries, in the spirit of André de Ridder.
We use deepL.com for our translations into English.
