Albert Dam, conductor of Youth Symphony Orchestra De Vuurvogel has been creating stay-at-home musical videos for almost a year. On Monday, a new video is released, which is a collab with Dutch artists Bertolf Lentink and Roel van Velzen.
Dam is a secondary school music teacher in Zwolle and conducts a choir, a big band and the youth symphony orchestra.
When the first lockdown started in March 2020, Dam needed something to stay busy. As one of the first in the country, he decided to make a stay-at-home video, a trend picked up by many orchestras all over the world.
“With an orchestra consisting of 90 people all sending in videos, that turned out to be quite the challenge. But it was worth it,” Dam says. He had worked with sound techniques before, but never has he done video editing.
Throughout the year, more videos followed, made by the choir and big band. Now, nearly a year later, it is time for another project with the symphony orchestra.
Vuurvogel violinist Nienke La Roi really enjoys the online projects. “It gives me reason to pick up my instrument again,” she says.
Normally, La Roi would take violin lessons and go to orchestra practice every week. “But now I don’t really have a purpose to work towards, so I’m not really motivated to play.”
She really misses playing in an orchestra. “We usually play together and work towards a goal: to perform together. Then once you give the concert and the audience appreciates it, that really gives you a kick.”
The videos are a good solution, according to her. “Even though we are not actually meeting, we are still creating something together,” she says.
“The core of my profession is making music together,” Dam says. “And now that we can’t be together anymore, I had to come up with something else.”
The video is a Valentine-cover of the Beatles’ song I want to hold your hand. “I saw a cover of the song by Lentink and Van Velzen and I figured: that would be cool with an orchestra. The result is a funny, crazy video filled with positive vibes only. It will really make you forget about corona for a few minutes.”
I wanna hold your hand, with Bertolf Lentink, Roel van Velzen and JSO de Vuurvogel can be found on the social media accounts of De Vuurvogel and below:
The Lens 