Joey Roukens composed the music for his upcoming opera Mr Finney, de Opera which will be premiered on April 27 at the Koninklijke Schouwburg Den Haag (Royal Theatre The Hague), featuring singers Martijn Cornet, Marijje van Stralen, Machteld Vennevertloo, Jean-Léon Klostermann, Wiebe-Pier Cnossen and Asko/Schönberg conducted by Bas Wiegers. The stage direction will be by Jos van Kan. After the first seven performances in The Hague, the opera will tour to various cities throughout the Netherlands in May and June.

The New European Ensemble presents the world premiere of Sieben mal sieben, a new work by Klas Torstensson written especially for the ensemble.

His piece is a colourful tribute to Arnold Schönberg’s Serenade, written for the same seven instruments: clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, guitar and mandolin. Torstensson is one of the Netherlands' most prominent composers. In the press reviews his compositions are called 'spectacular', 'impressive' and 'stunningly beautiful'.

With the imminent premiere of Jeths' first symphony, it is reasonable to take a brief look into the piece's structure.

Movements II and III are based on two former works, Scale - 'le tombeau de Mahler'- and Metanoia, while the first and last movements draw inspiration from two poems by J. W. Goethe: Unbegrenzt (part I) and Selige Sehnsucht (part IV), taken from the poem cycle West-Östlicher Divan (1827).

The symphony will be premiered by mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos and The Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart.