ZOEF

The pilot project of the previous year was full of heartwarming and meaningful moments: "Many of our residents are depressed and don't see many moments of joy, but you brought a lot of light and joy to our shelter" (coach at one of the shelters ZOEF visited). We would like to build on this and extend the project to even more people. With everything that we've learned from the pilot project, this new phase will be at bigger scale and hopefully reach even more and younger homeless individuals. In close collaboration with the Dutch shelter organization "Leger des Heils", we will visit 10 shelters across the Netherlands, starting in April 2024.

We channeled the untapped cultural talents of homeless individuals in this project, where we coached them in writing their own music. This pilot was a collaboration with Joris Branderhorst (also known as George Kush).

For persons with a mental handicap, music can be a powerful force for connection and inspiration. In this project in 2022, we hope to provide at least 10 performances for these persons, bringing our music and tailor-made performance to them. To make our performances accessible to the whole audience, we include them in the process by involving elements of drawing and improvisation.

Being a student in this time of social isolation is difficult. In this project, we want to reach and connect those students, coming to their doorstep or school and playing custom-made performances for them.

This project is financially supported by the Fonds Podiumkunsten.

In this project, we collaborated with a young Dutch composer to make his dream a reality: recording a CD of his music with a classical ensemble. The album with music by Chiel Nugter can be found on Spotify.

In our first project, we wanted to connect one that was disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic: children with special education needs. We made custom musical performances for each occasion and managed to play for hundreds of children, in total.

This project was financially supported by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurmakersfonds.

We will play at a vocational training school for young adults, bringing a custom-made performance with a diverse repertoire to their campus.

We will give a short performance and talk for music education students, giving them a peek behind the curtains of how we try to reach new audiences and what educational elements we include in our performances. This is part of a larger trajectory in which those students will then go on to create a set of recommendations for a specific performance, which we can then try out in practice.

At this school for special education, we delivered interactive performances where children got to experience and participate in music from close up. On this second day, we gave 4 performances.

At this school for special education, we delivered interactive performances where children got to experience and participate in music from close up. On this first day, we gave 5 performances.

At this school for children with special needs, we delivered a unique performance with an animal-theme. With the help of several custom-made arrangements of Carnaval des Animaux, we toke the children on a musical safari.

We played at a vocational training school for young adults. Normally, these students would go to some external location once every couple of months to broaden their horizons, but because of the pandemic, this was not possible. Luckily, we could step in and bring our performance to them, on-campus.

We played at a local community center where students and persons with a refugee-background live. After enjoying the delicious dinner they made, we performed a selection of our repertoire for them.

We played at the ceremony for the "Zilveren Anjers", where volunteers were awarded a medal for contributions to culture. The recognitions were awarded by her Majesty, Princess Beatrix.

We were a part of the "Time Out" theatre performance, performing a specially arranged song.

We performed a selection of our repertoire at a funeral near Eindhoven, to lend strength to the attendees.

At this school, we gave a series educational performances, featuring a unique composition workshop where we gave the children the opportunity to build their own music piece, as a group. On this second day, we gave one performance.

At this school, we gave a series educational performances, featuring a unique composition workshop where we gave the children the opportunity to build their own music piece, as a group. On this first day, we gave two performances for two different age groups.