NSO visits Middelburg—what an Enlightenment!

By Anne van Tatenhove

It was a strange experience when the average student population in Middelburg on a Sunday morning suddenly doubled—last Sunday, about 90 students from all over the Netherlands came to our small town. The reason for their visit? To enlighten us!

While the sun did its best to give us an early hint of spring, about 400 people gathered in the Zeeuwse Concertzaal last Sunday to listen to this year’s Dutch National Student Orchestra, or Nederlands Studenten Orkest (NSO). In a carefully selected group, these 90 students from universities and universities of applied sciences all over the Netherlands tour for 11 days, giving 11 concerts in student cities all over the country. Of the students in the orchestra, some go to conservatories, while others play their instrument as ‘just’ a hobby, next to educational programs in for example medicine, artificial intelligence, or philosophy.

The preparations for this concert of course started well in advance; you might not have noticed that the board of the NSO already visited Middelburg in the beginning of October last year. There was a lot to be arranged: finding guest families where the students could stay (rumour has it that some students even stayed with our Dean!), the promotion, the search for sponsors to pay for the venue, the dinner and the evening activity, the selling of tickets… Also within our own student population this had some effect, as the current Music Society Board became the student committee for the NSO in Middelburg. With the help of RASA, UCR students could even get their tickets at an extra discounted price of €5! This all should of course have been more than enough reason to visit the concert, but should you still have missed it, here is a brief overview of what happened:

The theme of this year’s program was ‘Enlightened’, making for a show that started off with a symphony especially written for the occasion by composer David Dramm, which was accompanied by an awesome light show. The second part of the show was a piano concert written by Gershwin, performed with Tobias Borsboom, a piano soloist that confirmed all stereotypes that a piano soloist should—a lanky, long-haired genius, playing the whole concert plus a Debussy encore without sheet music, and with hands that moved quicker than the audience’s eyes could follow. After the break, the show continued with the second symphony composed by Rachmaninov. Especially in this part of the show, the enthusiasm of conductor Quentin Clare brought the players to great professional heights.

What was evident during the program was, that, although these students took their part in the orchestra very seriously—wearing formal clothing, mastering their instruments extremely well, and playing marvelously—they were still students. They showed a healthy dose of self-mockery in their last act, in which the players of all separate instrument groups dressed up in a different way that fit the theme of Enlightenment, which made for a colourful and funny closure of the program.

After their main performance of the day was done, it was time to show the orchestra members how we roll in Middelburg, by letting them pretentiously dine in the Burgerzaal, after which the procession continued to, who would have known, our very own Common House Elliott. As the NSO students had already faced quite an intense eight days of touring with some wild parties, we decided to enlighten them in our unique Music, Poetry, Candlelight Night style. The study area in Elliott was transformed into a cozy venue with lots of chairs, mattresses and Christmas lights, whereas the candlelight could be found in the bar. Music and poetry were taken care of mainly by our own students, making it very diverse: there was some jazzy piano music, intimate singer-songwriter acts, a musical song, and even some brilliantly written, suspiciously rhythmical poetry. The NSO students also contributed to the night by singing their ‘NSO-lied’, the NSO anthem that gave a very convincing account of the fun these students must be having together.

After a full three hours of music, small groups of students could be seen wandering around Middelburg, the blue lights of their phone screens shining on their faces as they struggled to read the maps to find their way back to their temporary homes in our historical city center. At the same time, the lights in Elliott were dimmed—we had been enlightened, and hope to be so again, when the NSO is set to return in two years.

Anne van Tatenhove, Class of 2016, is an Economics and Sociology Major from Berkel en Rodenrijs, The Netherlands