Rolf Verbeek conducted a series of school concerts by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. 'A coach may shout his directions through the game. A conductor does it with hands and facial expressions.' nrc-newspaper-20240627-5659934-rolf-verbeek-directs-nedpho-for-school-classes-I-will-also-learn-to-play-fiddle-this-is-better-than-monkey-town

Final excerpt from the first movement of Bruckner's 6th symphony, live at Podium Klassiek.

...Verbeek knows "his" Bruckner, unmistakably: an excellent performance - obviously within the given chamber musical context - and a recording that rings like a bell.

In front of the orchestra is the conductor. The conductor decides how the orchestra should play. Louder, softer, faster, slower, more brass, fewer violins, etcetera. But invisible to the audience, there is usually an assistant conductor in the game as well. So what does such an assistant conductor do? Is the assistant a personal helper who runs for the conductor where [....]

Here is top-quality, highly enjoyable chamber-scale Bruckner for people drawn, say, to the arrangements commissioned by the Viennese "Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen" a century ago. Or it might also suit people who couldn't resist the glorious sleaze and squeeze of Uri Caine's "Wagner e Venezia" (1997). Or could it also be a means to soften [...]

Has anyone else directed Mahler's Fourth Symphony while singing the finale from the stage? Surely not ... but the present release, preserving a concert live-streamed mid-pandemic from Rotterdam's empty De Doelen hall, makes a different, more collegial kind of splash than fans of Gramophone's Artist of the Year might be expecting. The ensemble Camerata RCO, [...]

...The performances, in fact the most important part of the story, may be stamped 'grandiose' as far as I am concerned (Hannigan will have thought so too, but she has expressed herself more modestly about it). The Rolf Verbeek-led Camerata RCO plays music and thus interprets in a truly formidable way, with Barbara Hannigan at her best [...].

In an online concert from De Doelen, broadcast Friday, Barbara Hannigan performed with two protégés, the baritone Raoul Steffani and Rolf Verbeek, who conducted the fabulously playing Camerata RCO. With works by Alban Berg and Mahler arranged for small orchestra, they created an enchanted twilight world between dreams and reality.....

Look at Rolf Verbeek's agenda in these months after corona and you immediately see: here we are dealing with a busy man. Cities like Munich, Copenhagen, Antwerp, Maastricht, Paris and Amsterdam pass by. Nizhny Novgorod, formerly Gorky in Russia, is crossed out for the well-known reasons. Occupation: conductor. Residence: Groningen. "It is and [...]

He walks down the stairs of his student apartment above café Merlijn on Groningen's Meeuwerderweg on July 2. Once outside, he gets on his bicycle. A few hundred meters north toward downtown, he passes the Prince Claus Conservatory where he trained to be both a horn player and a conductor. Then he crosses the Trompbrugje [...].