Henrik Schwarz To Collaborate with Metropole Orkest for The Opening of ADE 2016

First time ever Henrik Schwarz will be playing along side Metropole Orkest live at ADE this coming October. Metropole Orkest are not strangers to creating a synergy between orchestral and dance music.

In the past they’ve worked with Basement Jaxx, Junkie XL and more recently with Squarepusher. Schwarz on the other hand, is an ADE regular. Over the past few years he has taken the stage at the Concertgebouw, Q&A’d at the Sonos Studio and performed at the Muziekgebouw with Dan Berglund and Bugge Wesseltoft.

Metropole Orkest

Since its foundation in 1945 the Metropole Orkest has reached millions of people around the world and has been honoured with many international awards, including an Oscar as well as multiple Grammy Awards. Most recently it received a Grammy for its project Sylva with Snarky Puppy.

Renowned for its wide-ranging abilities, Metropole Orkest is a non-classical orchestra that plays all styles from pop and jazz, to world music and film scores. The orchestra has had the privilege to work with great artists like Cécile McLorin Salvant, Robert Glasper Experiment, Junkie XL, Laura Mvula, Snarky Puppy, Basement Jaxx, Tori Amos and Squarepusher. The orchestra is a regular guest at (inter)national festivals like the North Sea Jazz Festival, BBC Proms, Holland Festival, Robeco Summer Nights and Musikfest Bremen.

Henrik Schwarz has worked with orchestras before, but he expects this particular experience to be very different. “So far I have only worked with ensembles who mostly play classical music. Metropole Orkest plays jazz and pop and I am sure they will also be able to play techno and electronic-inspired music,” he says. “It’s important that the musicians are experienced at playing music that is syncopated.”

Henrik Schwarz will be composing an hour of new music for the project. Metropole Orkest chief conductor Jules Buckley will be his right hand man, helping Schwarz to realize this musical vision through proper orchestral scoring and detailed feedback. “Our first meeting was in a coffee bar in Berlin,” Buckley said. “And we were mainly looking to see if there was common ground to do something cool together. We had not met before but I know his music pretty well. His album ‘Instruments’, created an awareness amongst a very broad audience and the buzz from that drew me in further.” Schwarz adds: “The sources for Instruments were electronic tracks that I had made over the years. This time it will be all new music written just for this project. Jules has encouraged me to really challenge the orchestra, and he is open to everything. He has full understanding of how an orchestra works, but also knows a lot about dance music, and where I come from.”

The Amsterdam Dance Event takes place from the 19th to 23rd of October, 2016.