WEAVE the Sail
Duo with Harp and Cello
12:00 - 12:30 | De Hallen Studio's
The WEAVE festival’s opening concert pays tribute to the Age of Exploration when the Dutch VOC set sail for Taiwan 400 years ago. Taiwanese cellist Sheng Chiun Lin and Dutch harpist Joost Willemze will play several pieces of chamber music from around the world, featuring some from Taiwanese female composer Ling-Hsuan Huang. This concert will make a lasting impression not only because of the rare interplay between these two beautiful instruments by talented musicians, but also for the diversity of music presented across time and space.
Joost Willemze (1996) is one of the leading Dutch harpists. At age 16 he was awarded the first prize in the national finals of the Princess Christina Competition in The Hague. In 2017 he won the International Harp Competition in Porto and one year later the Italian competition ‘Suoni d'Arpa’. In 2022 he recorded his debut cd with AVROTROS Klassiek. In 2023 he made a tour of the main concert halls in The Netherlands and won the prestigious Dutch Classical Talent Award, the jury praised his playing as 'harp next level'. That same year he won the 'Grachtenfestivalprijs’, making him Artist in Residence at the 2024 edition of the Grachtenfestival, the largest classical music festival in The Netherlands. Recently he made his solo debut with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Debussy’s Danses Sacrée et Profane at the main stage of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. In March this year he will record a cd with the Italian label TACTUS, covering works by Italian composers. Joost has played the harp since he was seven years old. In 2008 he started studying at the Academie Muzikaal Talent with Erika Waardenburg and Edward Witsenburg.
Joost Willemze - Harpist
Sheng Chiun Lin is a Taiwanese cellist based in the Netherlands.
In 2013, Sheng Chiun went to the Conservatorium van Amsterdam to pursue a Bachelor's degree in cello performance. He subsequently obtained his Master's degree in cello performance at the same institution in 2021, studying under Maarten Mostert and Jelena Očić, both founders of the Cello Biennale Amsterdam.
In 2020, Sheng Chiun completed a Master's degree program in string quartet performance at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, studying under the Quatuor Danel, and at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover in Germany, under the guidance of Professor Oliver Wille. He also won second prize at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochschulwettbewerb String Quartet Competition in Germany that year.
Currently, Sheng Chiun collaborates with Taiwanese composer Ling Hsuan Huang to perform contemporary music works in various exhibition spaces in the Netherlands. He also works with interdisciplinary artist Reza Mirabi as a resident artist at BAU, Amsterdam, and has performed in multiple cross-disciplinary festivals such as Julidans and ICK in Amsterdam. Starting in 2022, he is supported by the Amsterdams Fund for the Arts (Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst) as the Artistic Director of Chamber X Chamber.
ShengChiun Lin - Cellist
Ling Hsuan Huang is a Taiwanese composer who studied composition in Taipei, Berlin and Karlsruhe. Her works include solo works, chamber music, ensemble pieces, orchestral pieces and children's theater. She has worked with traditional Chinese music and Taiwanese folk music and has collaborated with various ensembles such as the International Ensemble Modern Academy, the Baden State Orchestra Karlsruhe, the Studio Orchestra of the University of the Arts Berlin and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. Ling-Hsuan Huang has won several composition prizes, including the Kompositionspreis of the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb in 2018 and second prize in the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra's composition competition in 2015.
Ling-Hsuan Huang - Composer