At the end of my thirty-sixth season as a freelance violinist I am looking back at creative and diverse years filled with orchestra work, chambermusic, improvisation, quests for suitable texts for the trio Rara Avis,making arrangements for crossover projects, searching for original stages and developing programmes with the great violinist Tinta von Altenstadt. Riding Zhuang Zhou’s sun and moon with an openmind. And I started teaching and coaching string sections in orchestras!

To go back a bit further: 2022-2023 started with  the production Shadows from The National Ballet, after which I took part in the production ‘7 Deaths of Maria Callas’ with the LUDWIG Orchestra and Marina Abramovic in Carré Amsterdam. Iparticipated in the opera ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ at the Dutch National Opera, and in the meantime developing literary concerts in libraries in Amsterdam with Tinta and the actor Sander Commandeur. We put together concerts with texts of contemporary Dutch writers intertwined with all shapes and forms of suitable music. Last season I played in the opera Die Passagierin with music from M Weinberg, a truly memorable and very touching production and several productions with the DutchBallet Orchestra and cooperation with the National Ballet.

Next season is filling up with several productions with the Ballet Orchestra and teaching, chamber music, coaching orchestras andimprovisation. I have developed my own idiom in improvisation, based on twentieth century composers such as Alban Berg, Bela Bartók mixedwith all the music and sounds I have ever heard. I strongly believe we allhave our own soundtrack somewhere in our souls. The point is to getthat personal story out. I also play and produce music for films with my brother-in-law Ben Crosland, we feature in the Indian film “Duet” underdirection of Sheetal Manon.

So, my work mainly consists of playing in classical orchestras andensembles, and since about twenty years I have been developing free improvising skills as well (also see: impro). Since autumn 2017 Jodi Gilbert, Albert van Veenendaal and I form the trio Rara Avis. The music on the album “How Do I Listen” (named after a poem from Hafez)is totally improvised and we find inspiration in many different texts frome.g. Hafez, Yosa Buson, F Scott Fitzgerald, a rose catalogue, a newspaperheadline and Jodi Gilbert’s texts. We are very proud that our debutalbum has been released on the Donemus Crossover label as well as Bandcamp and all major streamers. The CD release was in april 2023 onminimal damage recordings and we are very happy that Edwin van Munster has once again produced an eye-catching  CD cover.

We have received some great reviews, for example  from the German audiomagazine Bad Alchemy: “Jodi Gilbert transforms the wholematerial into something like art pop, something quite different from artificially dumbed-down or tirillized art songs. Violin and piano are on the move in a modernist way, with enough know-how and esprit to shake the right thing out of their sleeves, from bitterly tremolated emotional tremors and shimmering wisping to the most pointed i-fiddles, with a thoughtfully applied hand, small hatchings on the pianowire or cross-keys to plonking grips or tonal preperation. Just great. [BA119 rbd]

De pilot serie literaire concerten die ik samen met Tinta von Altenstadt en Sander Commandeur seizoen ’21-’22 heb opgezet voor bibliotheken in o.a. Amsterdam (CC Amstel), Amstelveen en Haarlem hebben we in september ’22 in de bibliotheken van Hilversum en Hoofddorp herhaald, en we kijken ernaar uit om deze serie met teksten van Oliver Reps, Rob van Essen, Hanna Bervoets, Mano Bouzamour, Robert Vuijsje, Tobi Lakmaker en Roos van Rijswijk dit seizoen opnieuw uit te voeren. De teksten worden voorgelezen door Sander Commandeur.

Het vioolduo von Altenstadt & de Jong verrijkt deze luisterervaring met een divers repertoire, eigen arrangementen, improvisatie en soundscapes. We speelden op 22/6/25  in de Tempel in de Pijp (Amsterdam).