The schedule for the free concerts during Grachtenfestival in Amsterdam is now up, but, only in Dutch. The English button and Google Chrome don't seem to work on this website.
Anyone have suggestions as to unusual venues or excellent musicians that are playing the festival the weekend of August 12-14 that we should check out?
Advice for Grachtenfestival Aug 12-14?
Recent Activity
View all Europe activity »
- 1
May 25, 2013: Being tourists and finding festivals
- 2
Our trip to Rome & the Amalfi Coast (with all transportation logistics included!)
- 3 The Old ATM Question Ally Bank Debit Cards in Europe today
- 4 Paris Museum Pass--Where best for us to purchase?
- 5 browsing homes for sale in Kent
- 6 First time student to Europe- Need help with ticket purchase and itinerary
- 7 Traveling with a guide in Turkey
- 8 2 days to get from Paris to Rome
- 9 Drive or Train ?? - Lausanne-Interlaken-Zurich
- 10 4 days in Zurich for the adventurous- what to do?
- 11 Comfortable shoes to wear in Italy this summer and not look like a tourist
- 12 Need help in deciding!! Trip in end of July
- 13 IRELAND ELECTRONIC HELP
- 14
Turkey - through the back doors of Truckstops and Business Hotels...
- 15 First Timer - Itinerary Help - Europe tour for 22 days
- 16 Olive Oil Tasting in Tuscany
- 17 Tolls on Grossglockner Alpine Road
- 18 Air show in Paris, what to expect
- 19 Stop over in France
- 20 Paris - Apartment on Rue Volta, 3rd arr?
- 21 Vatican Guided Tours Questions
- 22 Beaune Hotel or B&B Recommendation Please
- 23 Family Trip in July - General Guidance Would be Appreciated
- 24 Scotland Itinerary getting better, still needs your expertise!
- 25 2 weeks in Slovenia and Croatia--Need help planning
The free concerts are a week later. According to the website (which isn't very good, but is sort of available in English) there are no free concerts on your dates.
There are some, indoors, for which you need to buy tickets - tickets cost €12.50 pp.
The descriptions are in Dutch, even on the English pages.
On the 13th are Habenera - with a mezzo-soprano and a harpist playing Cuban dance music, and an architectural boat tour, both repeated during the course of the day. One boat tour goes to a different area. Both have a commentary about the architecture and music, and one visit the Conservatorium and Music theatre.
Sunday 14th has the boat trips again, plus barok music in teh Bijbels Museum.
The big free concert is on Saturday 20th.
Thanks for the reply. Am confused since looking at the website, http://www.grachtenfestival.nl/concert_overview.vm, it appears that there are many free concerts that weekend (i.e., price listed is 0.00 euros). Some say tickets are required and others don't. Are we looking at the same website?
OK I looked at that site and it said no free concerts. Now it has them. As I said not a good website and very flaky in it's internal links.
The opening free concert is in a former church. It could well be crowded so you should get there early. It includes ballet dancers from the Scapino Ballet in Rotterdam.
A lot of those on Saturday are free but need a ticket due to the limited capacity of the building. There are some in the afternoon which take place at different locations in the centre, and a free, outside and need no ticket - each concert lasts 30 minutes. I can't see the locations for these though. I see the final one is on the Kloveniersburgwal. The evening ones are all paid for.
Sunday 12.00 Ties Mellema, a Saxofonist is playing in the Vondelpark, free. More pop music than classical/jazz.
13.00 Bach organ concert in the Westerkerk, free.
Musical chairs (yes really!) 14.00 on the Zwanenplein.
The rest require, sometimes expensive, tickets.
The Saturday afternoon concerts sound the most interesting to me, but I have no idea how you find out where they are taking place, maybe an e-mail to the organisers?
Thanks so much for your reply. This is very helpful. The paid concert at an historic house museum also looks interesting (the Habanera concert you mentioned).
Translated all of the descriptions into English and found that there are two reasonably priced dinner concerts. Do you have any experience with the dinner concerts? The Hilton has a comic opera with Italian dinner: Combattimento Consort Amsterdam plays Telemann's short comic opera Pimpinone.The battle between the sexes in the time of Georg Philipp Telemann often the source of a good joke and therefore an appropriate subject for an interlude. A traditional Italian cuisine is the backdrop for this semi-staged performance.
The hotel pulitzer also has a dinner/concert: A concert arrangement in the gardens of the Hotel Pulitzer. First a drink, then enjoyCordevento in the Garden Room, and finally a three-course dinner Pulitzer garden. TrioCordevento (or cord '& vento: wind and strings) consists of a handful of flutes, fourguitars and a harpsichord. The younger generation of specialists in historicalperformance practice is now "only" looking for authenticity in early music. Block flutist Erik Bosgraaf and guitarist Izhar Elias received every year the prestigious Dutch music award.