Exclusive Friends' recital
Sunday 15 March / 14.00 - 17.00
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ILFZ Friends contact
Van Lijndenlaan 14, 1412 EK Naarden
Mailing is also allowed: vrienden@ilfz.nl
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w/o. Henk Neven, baritone & Hans Eijsackers, piano / Noëlle Drost, soprano & Jorian van Nee, piano
Friends are indispensable! Because without friends there would be no top musicians, no education for children and young people, no support for masterclass participants and no Young Artist Platform. Our friends help defray costs, finance new activities and form a buffer for less prosperous times. Our friends are enablers!
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On Sunday afternoon, 15 March. From 2 p.m., the door will be open for an afternoon where we can catch up as friends among ourselves over a snack and a drink as well as get an exclusive preview of the festival in May. Soprano Noëlle Drost and pianist Jorian van Nee - winners of the Young Artist Platform 2025 - will perform part of their recital Rising water performed. Our artistic directors Henk Neven and Hans Eijsackers will perform a number of songs from Italienisches Liederbuch That they were also during the Opening recital will perform, but with soprano Katharina Ruckgaber. And, of course, they will tell you more about the festival theme Back to nature.
14.00 - reception with coffee/tea
14.30 - welcome by chairman Jef Oomen
14.40 - Noëlle Drost & Jorian van Nee: mini recital Rising water
15.00 - a good conversation with Henk Neven and Hans Eijsackers
15.45 - closing and afterglow with a snack and drink
Agricultural shed
Karpervijver 14, 3703 CJ Zeist
Henk Neven / bass-baritone - artistic director
Henk Neven is one of the most inspired song interpreters of his generation. He received the Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship, participated in the prestigious BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Scheme and was awarded the Dutch Music Prize, the highest award given by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to a musician working in classical music.
Neven works with renowned orchestras and ensembles, has performed several major opera roles and performs song recitals with leading pianists such as James Baillieu, Malcolm Martineau and his regular pianist Hans Eijsackers. Neven and Eijsackers have since released four CDs that received rave reviews. Besides his busy schedule of performances and master classes at home and abroad, Neven also regularly sits on the jury of international vocal competitions and is principal study teacher at Codarts Conservatoire Rotterdam. Since 2022, he and pianist Hans Eijsackers have formed the artistic director of the festival.
Hans Eijsackers / piano - artistic director
Hans Eijsackers studied at the conservatories of Amsterdam and The Hague, and at the European Mozart Academy in Kraków. His teachers were Gérard van Blerk, Jan Wijn and György Sebök. He won prizes at the European Piano Competition and received the Silver Vriendenkrans of the Concertgebouw. He is currently a professor at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, where in recent years he developed the curriculum for the new master's specialisation Lied.
Eijsackers performs frequently as a soloist, chamber musician and song pianist, and forms an inspired song duo with Henk Neven. In addition, he is a regular guest at home and abroad as a jury member and master class teacher and regularly visits Lithuania as ‘ambassador for the art song’. In addition, Eijsackers is artistic director of the International Student Song Duo Competition in Groningen, which took place for the seventh time in November 2024. Since 2022, he has been the artistic director of the festival together with Henk Neven.
Noëlle Drost / soprano
Dutch soprano Noëlle Drost (1999) graduated from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in June 2023 with a 10 and distinction for ‘being an exquisite exceptional artist on all aspects, illuminating herself and everyone around her’. She is currently developing into a versatile classical singer who is in great demand for song, opera and oratorio at home and abroad. She has won several prizes and can be heard in various Dutch concert halls and the Grachtenfestival. Drost attended Elly Ameling's master class for the TV programme Podium Witteman. She has soloised with Holland Baroque, the North Netherlands Orchestra and sang various opera roles, including Idamante and the title role in ‘L'incoronazione di Poppea’.
Jorian van Nee / piano
Jorian van Nee studies piano with Frank Peters at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Earlier, he took lessons with David Kuyken and Henk Ekkel. He received master classes from Igor Roma, Ronald Brautigam and Jan Wijn, among others. Besides his piano studies, Van Nee also took composition lessons with Willem Jeths.
Van Nee can be heard regularly as a soloist and chamber musician and has played with leading orchestras such as the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and Sinfonia Rotterdam. He gave performances in TV programmes such as De wereld draait door and Podium Witteman and on NPO Klassiek, where he played his own compositions live. Van Nee won several prizes at a young age, including at the Peter the Great festival and the Young Pianist Foundation competition. Jorian plays a Bechstein grand piano from the National Music Instruments Fund.
Henk Neven is a song interpreter who masters the metier down to the smallest detail. With his velvety, highly agile voice, he can concentrate optimally on the text, opening up fascinating vistas.
Hans Eijsackers - who is allowed to 'go wild' as a soloist - delivers his masterstroke of colouring and timing. His rubati and accelerandi are fabulously embedded in a deeply fragrant richness of sound.
Noëlle Drost evoked an atmosphere that for many rose above the nature of a concert. She knew herself to be a master at showing the power of music to express emotions.
The finest nocturnes of the evening are those by Jorian van Nee: he conjures with colour, slowness and silence and quasi-improvisational sound whispers that carry you away as if in a dream.