Musical footsteps in the city in collaboration with Festival Vocallis

Maastricht music history
2026 has been declared Maastricht Year: a year to celebrate connection and share stories about the city and its people. There are more musical footprints in the city than you might know. For example, did you know that Maastricht is the birthplace of cellist and composer Joseph Hollman, who was proclaimed 'royal violoncellist' by King Willem III? He lived and worked for a long time in Paris, where he got to know composers such as Jules Massenet, Edouard Lalo, Eugène Ysaÿe and Camille Saint-Saëns. He was also a true citizen of the world, teaching for some time the son of the Japanese emperor. Several compositions were dedicated to him and his playing was praised, but with his own works he was less successful in his own time.

Get to know the musicians
Composer and pianist Andrée Bonhomme was also born in Maastricht. She started writing down melodies at the age of 10 and was encouraged by Charles Mulder - also a Maastricht native! - to continue doing so in particular. After her studies, she came into contact with Darius Milhaud, who took her on as his pupil. Quite a lot of her work has survived, but it is rarely performed.

He himself did not like to step into the limelight, but work by Charles Mulder himself should of course not be missing from the programme. Nor that of Gustaaf Francies de Pauw. Although one was born in Maastricht and the other breathed his last there, the lives of both composers show that in music, too, Maastricht is anchored in the region right across the border with Belgium.

Hans Leenders is our own city composer and will therefore also sound, giving you the outside chance to get to know Maastricht from a whole new angle. Listen to primal Dutch music, with a hint of French influences.