The energy of Iris Hond and Kamerata Zuid
Pianist Iris Hond and conductor and artistic director of Kamerata Zuid Frank Adams are teaming up again for a musical collaboration. After a successful concert tour in 2023, the music of Ludovico Einaudi is once again at the center this time. Iris is excited to play with the string orchestra again: ‘Because something happens that you can’t rehearse or plan. As soon as my piano and Kamerata Zuid come together, an incredible energy emerges.’ Frank: ‘After our previous collaboration, we were actually just not done yet. We thought: there’s more to explore here.’
The concert on Friday, November 27, 2026, is a reprise, but new pieces will be played. Iris: ‘It’s not a matter of just taking the old program off the shelf and playing it again. Yes, Einaudi’s piano concerto is coming back. We did that together three years ago, and it was received so well that we thought: why let this go? But I’m not the same pianist I was two years ago.’
There’s also a creative challenge for Frank in this concert. ‘Kamerata Zuid will at least play Andante & Scherzo by Scriabin and Adagietto by Mahler. Over the past few years, our musicians have developed into an orchestra that makes a national impact. For example, we played on May 4th during the National Remembrance Day.’
For the audience, the concert will feel like a new concert according to Iris: ‘The notes are the same, but my relationship to those notes keeps changing. I don’t want to play the same concert twice. I want to rediscover what’s in that music. And besides that, we’re also performing my own work, including new pieces, so the program really gets a completely new breath.’
Einaudi’s piano concerto Domino is the main piece of the program. It’s still rarely performed worldwide and is very special to Iris: ‘For me, it’s extra special because I worked on it a lot together with Einaudi himself. To me, it really embodies everything that makes his music so powerful: minimalist, cinematic, and incredibly emotional.’
Kamerata Zuid and Iris complement each other during the concert. Frank: ‘It’s a constant interplay of letting go and listening to each other. In the silence and in the sound.’ Iris: ‘My piano is very direct and personal, and the orchestra adds a huge splash of color to that and confront it head-on. That creates moments on stage that you just can’t create on your own.
For Iris, it’s great to share the stage with the eighteen musicians of the orchestra: ‘Kamerata Zuid is incredibly open and curious. There’s little sense of: this is how it should be. That suits me perfectly. I love to completely let go of boundaries between styles and work purely on musical intuition. With Kamerata Zuid, I feel that same freedom. It’s hugely inspiring!’ Working with Iris is also an amazing experience for Frank: ‘We share a vision of how a concert should sound. Iris’s intensive preparation and boldness fit perfectly with the string sound.’ The musicians of Kamerata Zuid, led by concertmaster Evelien Japsers, will share the stage with Iris in November: ‘We can’t wait to search for musical boundaries night after night and create an intensely musical experience together.’
Kamerata Zuid & Iris Hond playing Einaudi can be seen on Friday, November 27, 2026, in the Hertog Jan Hall.