For Het Collectief, Mahler’s Song of the Earth will always remain connected to the accursed year 2020. And not just because of the corona crisis. When we had finished the recording session at the beginning of January, we did not know that our conductor, and the arranger of this new Mahler transcription Reinbert de Leeuw, would die a good month later. The farewell to life, so poignantly described in The Song of the Earth, could not be any harder. When the corona crisis came on top of that, the year 2020 promised to be an extremely morbid year.
Yet, with three concerts that have escaped corona, we have been able to write a new chapter thanks to Gregor Mayrhofer. This young German conductor commanded admiration by following in Reinbert's footsteps in a dignified way.
We consider ourselves fortunate to be able to repeat this experience at the magnificent concert hall of Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht.
