New Dutch Academy

The New Dutch Academy Orchestra

“fantastic flair ... energising performances … daring and full of character” (Haagsche Courant)

The international award winning orchestra of the New Dutch Academy stands under the leadership of the Australian/Dutch conductor and viola player Simon Murphy. Its member musicians, variously from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, France, Spain, Poland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US., are the new generation of leading international early music specialist performers. The NDA performs exclusively on authentic instruments.

The orchestra is based in The Hague, the Netherlands, is supported by the city and is part of the city’s official cultural infrastructure.

Since its establishment in 2002 the orchestra has attracted much interest from audiences and the international press for its exciting performance style and fresh approach to early music. In particular, the NDA has won praise for shedding new light on the richness of the 18th century music culture, for example by innovative programming – bringing exciting, newly found 18th century onto the concert podium, for example from the Mannheim and Dutch 18th century symphonic schools – and through the NDA’s multidisciplinary projects which connect music with other 18th century art forms.

The orchestra's repertoire ranges from large scale Baroque works such as Corelli's Concerti Grossi and Handel's Water Music to works of the mid 18th century symphonic schools of Mannheim and the Netherlands through to the large scale symphonic works of later 18th century/early 19th century masters such as Haydn, Mozart, Cimarosa, Pleyel, Beethoven, Wranitzky and their contemporaries. The orchestra also performs many works newly discovered by the NDA's own research department The NDA “Research Lab”.

Recent concert tours have seen the NDA orchestra perform throughout mainland Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, Canada, the U.S., Asia and Australia. Through its own concert series and its annual multidisciplinary NDA festival the NDA also maintains a busy schedule of performances at home in the Netherlands. The NDA has performed at all of the leading halls in the Netherlands, from the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) to De Doelen (Rotterdam) and Vredenburg (Utrecht). Internationally, the NDA has performed at the leading international festivals, including the Holland Festival of Early Music Utrecht, the Festival of Flanders, the Roma Europa Festival (Italy), Potsdam Festspiele, the Mitte Europa Festival (Germany and Czech Republic), the Brezice Festival (Slovenia) and the Sacharov Festival (Russia), the Händel Festspiele in Halle, the Thüringer Bachwoche in Weimar and at the Nothern Lights Festival in Norway. Recently the NDA was involved in a series of lectures and performances at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, U.S.A.

NDA concerts have been broadcast across the world by the EBU and the NDA has worked further with, amongst others, Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep, AVRO, NPS, Deutschland Funk, Hessischer Rundfunk, RAI, Klara and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to achieve special radio concert broadcasts and documentary programmes with new 18th century repertoire.

The NDA works closely with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a cultural ambassador on projects that celebrate historical cultural relationships and which foster international cultural understanding and exchange. In 2004 the NDA performed rediscovered Dutch and Italian Baroque music in the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome for Her Majesty Queen Beatrix and the President of Italy during the Queen’s State Visit to Italy. In 2006 the NDA celebrated the 400 year relationship between the Netherlands and Australia, giving special concerts, broadcasts, master-classes and workshops in both countries. In 2009, at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry, the NDA opened the cultural olympiad in Vancouver, Canada with performances of specially selected 17th and 18th century Dutch repertoire. Also in 2009, the NDA was part of the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New York by the Dutch with performances of 18th century Dutch court music in the U.S.A. at the invitation of the city of The Hague.

Recordings

Alongside the NDA’s concert performances, the NDA recordings also have been enthusiastically received. The first NDA CD (PentaTone) looking at the birth of the symphony, featuring early works of the Mannheim masters Stamitz and Richter, immediately won an Edison Music Award. “Murphy makes the music of the Mannheim masters come alive – dancing, swinging … Finally the Mannheimers sound like they should – the of joy the new, the excitement of the sense of discovery, the euphoric rush of a Mannheim skyrocket!” (Parool, the Netherlands) “One of the most interesting musical projects of the moment – exploring one of the fundamental facets of music – the symphony.” (CD Compact, Spain)

The NDA Orchestra's recording of the Corelli Concerti Grossi (as first published by Roger in Amsterdam in 1713), recorded live at the Holland Festival of Early Music Utrecht, has also been glowingly reviewed: “When it came to his orchestral music, size mattered for Corelli …These accounts by the New Dutch Academy, a big band playing on period instruments, reflect the best of both worlds. Its sound is sumptuous, but textures are sufficiently transparent to allow details to cut through, and the historically informed approach includes stylish ornamentation and a battery of continuo instruments which would surely have delighted the composer. … director Simon Murphy infuses these accounts with subtle jazz-like touches: swinging rhythms, inventive extemporisations and vigorous guitar strumming effects.” (BBC Music Magazine, UK), “Das Klangbild ist erfreulich lebendig, transparent und voller Noblesse, fängt das volle Temperament und den finessenreichen Stil trefflich ein. Eine exzellente Interpretation” (Concerto, Germany).

The NDA world premiere CD documenting the symphonic and chamber works of Joseph Schmitt “The Dutch Haydn” has successfully put this composer back on the musical map. Le "Haydn hollandais": un compositeur tout en verve, que sert avec un entrain irrésistible la New Dutch Academy de Simon Murphy. (Le Soir - “Nos coups de coeur”) Holländischer Haydn – Gleich einer frischen sommerlichen Brise aus Holland kommt diese Neuproduktion mit Werken der Joseph Schmitt daher .. Die unverbraucht spritzig klingende New Dutch Academy legt ein geradezu flammende Pläydoyer für diesen bislang unterschätzen Meister vor. ... Viele Effekt – etwa anrührende Pianissimi, auf die unmittelbar Fortissimo-Passagen, lassen den durchaus eigensinnigen Komponisten erkennen. Diese Bandbreite der musikalischen Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten fulminant darzustellen, ist der New Dutch Academy offensichtlich eine Freude. ... Packend, spieltechnisch brillant – und nicht zuletzt wieder mit einem besonderen Augenmerk auf der Ausgestaltung des Basses – führt die New Dutch Academy durch diesen bislang unbekannten Schaffenskosmos. Sehr zu empfehlen! (Concerto)

The most recent recording of the NDA presents the symphonic tradition of the 18th century Court of Orange in The Hague. The disc features symphonic works by a selection of important composers active at the court, including Francesco Zappa, Schwindl, Graaf and Carl Stamitz. This world premiere recording follows seven years of research by the NDA’s research lab and is the first ever disc to offer a view of the Netherlands' court symphonic tradition. The recording includes the first performance of the major recent musicological discovery – the “Adagio for Cello and Orchestra” by Zappa.