Category: Highlights

1973

  • Establishment of the then still named 'Circle Ensemble' by Michael de Roo. At that time, the ensemble was still mainly occupied with contemporary music, focusing on percussion. The name is derived from the composition 'Circles' by Luciano Berio, with which the ensemble won an important prize in 1974 during the International Gaudeamus Competition.

1977

  • Performance of New Music Festival with works by Busotti and Georg Crumb.
  • Holland Festival performance with opera 'Houdini' by Peter Schat, produced by the Netherlands Opera in collaboration with Circle Ensembles Steelband.

1978

  • Muziektheater ‘Olifantje Babar’.

1979

  • Action Painting with painter Norman Perryman and mime artist Rene Bazinet. Action Painting later became Kinetic Painting.

1980

  • Performance at the Holland Festival with music theatre production 'The Two Fiddlers' with music by Peter Maxwell Davies.

1982

  • Holland Festival performance with music theatre production 'Olifantje Babar' by Scapino with music by Francis Poulenc, specially arranged for the Circle Ensemble Steelband.

1983

  • Performances during the Holland Festival, the first ever concert performed on Japanese instruments by non-Japanese percussionists, with works by Yoshihisa Taira and Maki Ishii.
  • Performance at the Festival D'Automne, Paris, France.
  • World premiere of the symphonic version of 'Kaguyahime' by Maki Ishii in collaboration with percussionists of the Berlin Symfonic Orchestra and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

1984

  • Dutch tour with the famous Japanese percussion group KODO.

1986

  • First Japanese percussion workshop by the Circle Ensemble and Japanese master drummer and Odaiko virtuoso Yoshikazu Fujimoto.
  • Concerts with marimba virtuoso Keiko Abe and master drummer Eitetsu Hayashi.

1987

  • A five-week tour of Japan at the invitation of the Tokyo Summer Festival.