“The perfect man climbs the wind and the clouds, he rides the sun and moon, and wanders beyond the confines of the Universe”
Zhuang Zou 369-286 BC

The text is currently being updated. It will be ready around 11/6/2026 but there is no harm in reading the text beforehand of course.

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, chamber music, 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 open mind. 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. I participated 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 Dutch Ballet 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 and improvisation. I have developed my own idiom in improvisation, based on twentieth century composers such as Alban Berg, Bela Bartók mixed with all the music and sounds I have ever heard. I strongly believe we all have our own soundtrack somewhere in our souls. The point is to get that 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” under direction of Sheetal Manon.

So, my work mainly consists of playing in classical orchestras and ensembles, 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 from e.g. Hafez, Yosa Buson, F Scott Fitzgerald, a rose catalogue, a newspaper headline and Jodi Gilbert’s texts. We are very proud that our debut album has been released on the Donemus Crossover label as well as Bandcamp and all major streamers. The CD release was in april 2023 on minimal 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 whole material 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 piano wire or cross-keys to plonking grips or tonal preperation. Just great. [BA 119 rbd]

And also…