Around International Women's Day (March 8), the Residentie Orkest traditionally joined beautiful activities in the neighborhood with its social programming. This year we took two ensembles on the road to three different locations.

On Wednesday March 5, Alexandra Bons (violin) and Jieun Kim (viola) played a program consisting of works by Mozart and the Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz in the Duinzichtkerk in Benoordenhout, as part of the Fantastic Femmes Fest of cultural anchor Podium Noord. After the concert, violinist Alexandra and RO producer and musicologist Maaike engaged the audience in a conversation about women in classical music, historically and today. Among other things, the legitimate question of why there was Mozart on the program came along: so few violin-violin duos by female composers have been published that it was difficult to put together a program without including works by a man.

Friday evening, March 7, we were invited by TransitionCinema to join their monthly documentary evening at Zandvliet College. After a joint dinner with the evening's guests, Alexandra and Jieun once again played their program, opening the evening. Then the musicians and visitors watched a screening of the documentary Knowing the Score (2023) together. This portrait of Australian conductor Simone Young shows how recent it is only that female conductors are accepted in the classical music world and what bizarre situations and hurtful statements Simone Young has had to deal with in her career. After the screening, Alexandra, our own Emerging Artist in Residence Chloe Rooke and choirmaster Marcela Obermeister-Shasha from The Hague entered into a discussion with each other and the audience about the position of women in the current classical music world in the Netherlands and Europe. Again, many interesting questions from the audience came along.

On Women's Day itself, Saturday , March 8, we concluded our series with a concert at the dinner that Participatiekeuken Moerwijk organized for members of Lions Club The Hague and local residents. Eline van Esch (flute) and Mathilde Wauters (harp) played works by Rota, Piazolla, Khan and French composer Clémence de Grandval. And of course, we also joined the delicious dinner that the Participation Kitchen had prepared for the Iftar! We would like to thank VanderVelde Removals, and especially driver Rick, for transporting the harp and lecterns.

These concerts were made possible in part by Fonds RO & Fonds 1818.