Enjoy a concert by the Calefax Reed Quintet with music that brings together classical and pop. For 35 years, the group has earned international acclaim for their virtuosic playing, brilliant arrangements, and novel staging.
As innovators of this new ensemble genre, featuring oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet, and bassoon, Calefax takes an adventurous approach to programming. Its varied repertoire includes new commissions and member-created arrangements, covering music from the past and today. As a result of countless international tours and collaborations with all kinds of musicians, its performances reflect the influences of world music, jazz, and improvisation.
This program highlights the richness and diversity of American music.
Members of the Calefax Reed Quintet
Oboist Oliver Boekhoorn studied at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He is a member of Cobla Amsterdam and regularly performs with the larger orchestras and ensembles in the Netherlands.
Clarinetist Bart de Kater earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees with honors from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he is now on the woodwind faculty, and founded the Nieuw Amsterdams Klarinet Kwartet. He has taught at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and is currently a member of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble.
Saxophonist and composer Raaf Hekkema is a soloist and teacher at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. His many composition projects include his arrangement and recording of Paganini’s 24 caprices for solo violin, for which he was named instrumentalist of the year by the German ECHO Klassik in 2007. He has been a member of the Dutch Akademie van Kunsten since 2020.
Jelte Althuis studied clarinet and bass clarinet at the Sweelinck Conservatory. Since joining Calefax in 1994, he has specialized on the bass clarinet and basset horn and has served as music arranger. He plays regularly for the larger orchestras in the Netherlands.
Bassoonist Alban Wesly is Calefax’s cofounder and one of its music arrangers. He studied music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and has been awarded the Kolfschoten prize. Wesly has collaborated with such well-known composers as Gijsbrecht Royé, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Heinz Holliger, and has performed with MusikFabrik. He teaches bassoon and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
Program
Samuel Barber (1910-1981) / (arr. Jelte Althuis)
Excursions, op. 20
Un poco allegro
In slow blues tempo
Allegretto
Exuberant and joyous barn dance
Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953) / (arr. Jelte Althuis)
Selection from Sonata in E minor
Andante
Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952) / (arr. Raaf Hekkema)
Quartet
Allegro molto moderato
Lento
Allegro molto
Cole Porter (1891-1964) / (arr. Oliver Boekhoorn)
“Just One of Those Things”
George Gershwin (1898-1937) / (arr. Raaf Hekkema)
Rhapsody In Blue
Program subject to change.