Mijke Sekhuis studied classical solo singing (opera and Lied) at the Royal Conservatoire and the Dutch National Opera Academy in The Hague. She then joined the Centre National d'Insertion Professionelle d'Artistes Lyriques in Marseille, France. She took master classes with Tom Krause, Mady Mesplé, Nathalie Stutzmann, Elly Ameling, Michael Chance and Graham Johnson, among others.
Mijke Sekhuis is active as a song, concert and opera singer at home and abroad in the classical and contemporary repertoire. She has worked with the orchestra of the Bayerische Rundfunk in Munich, as well as several of the major Dutch orchestras, including in the Concertgebouw's Saturday Matinee series.
In contemporary and 20e-century repertoire, she participated in premieres of operas and solo works by composers such as Klaas de Vries (Wake - Nederlandse Reisopera), Martijn Padding (Laika - DNO) and Willem Jeths (Hôtel de Pékin - Dutch Travel Opera, Monument to a Universal Marriage).
Mijke Sekhuis plays contemporary and classical chamber music repertoire with ensembles such as the Doelen Quartet, Domestica Rotterdam and Ensemble Caméleon. In 2007, as a song duo with pianist Saskia Lankhoorn, she won the press and audience award of the Vriendenkransconcours of the Concertgebouw and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, among others. With pianist Shuann Chai she recently blew the dust off the forgotten song cycle Les Chats of the first Composer of the Fatherland Willem Jeths.
She gives song recitals with pianist Shuann Chai and with (forte) pianist Vaughan Schlepp.
The Nije Trio
Mijke Sekhuis, soprano
Hanka Clout, clarinet
Vaughan Schlepp, piano
Soprano Mijke Sekhuis, together with clarinettist Hanka Clout and fortepianist Vaughan Schlepp the Nije Trio. The combination of soprano and clarinet with the unique sound of the fortepiano allows the Nije Trio to showcase beautiful music for different instrumentations. The programme is built around two highlights of the repertoire for this combination: Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen and the fierce aria Parto, Parto by Mozart. Let yourself be drawn into the world of Mozart and Schubert, but also be surprised by the music of their contemporaries Schumann and Spohr. Burgeoning romance full of echoes from deep valleys, shepherds on high peaks and palpitations of desire ...
Spohr - out Sechs deutsche Lieder No. 1,2,4,5
Mozart - As Luise and Abendempfindung
Schumann - Aus den Östlichen Rosen, Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, Sehnsucht
Mozart - Parto, parto from La Clemenza di Tito
Schubert - Sonatina in g D 408 op. 137, Romanze from Die Verschworenen and Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.
This programme is suitable for rooms without a grand piano, but can also be played in the classical setting with a grand piano if necessary.
Mijke Sekhuis, soprano
Vaughan Schlepp, (forte) piano
In this song recital, Mijke Sekhuis and Vaughan Schlepp follow the development of the art of song from the High Classical period to the early Romantic period with a special focus on the possibilities and qualities of the fortepiano as an accompanying instrument. From Ariadne's longings in Haydn's Arianna a Naxos, we end up via Mozart's Luise to the romantic settings of Goethe's tragic heroines like Mignon and the girl in love from Mendelssohn's Die Liebende schreibt.
At the heart of this recital is Mignon's singing Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt Central: in as many as ten different settings, we discover how composers such as Schubert and Schumann, but also Zelter, Fanny Mendelssohn and Beethoven were inspired by this Romantic poetry.
Haydn - Arianna a Naxos
Mozart - As Luise and Der Zauberer
Beethoven, Loewe, Von Hiller, Reissiger, Zelter, Schubert, Fanny Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann - Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Felix Mendelssohn - Neue Liebe, Die Liebende schreibt, And'res Maienlied
This programme is suitable for rooms without a grand piano, but can also be played in the classical setting with a grand piano if necessary.
Mijke Sekhuis, soprano
Shuann Chai, piano
A French programme with music by Dutchman Jeths and American Barber: how French will that sound?
American Samuel Barber composed on five French texts by Rainer Maria Rilke (also no Frenchman) and drew inspiration from the grandmasters of French Mélodie. The completed cycle Mélodies passagères was dedicated to the duo Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc, who premiered the work in Paris in 1952. Surely there is quite a French air about that somewhere.
More famous grandmasters of French song visit Mijke Sekhuis and Shuann Chai, of course. With the cycles of Ravel and Debussy, they are assured of longing and melancholy, of velvet and birdsong, of burning sun and endless rainy afternoons.
Finally, they blow the dust off three early songs by Dutch composer Willem Jeths. In his short cycle Les Chats, after three poems by Baudelaire, he explores the language of these sphinxes of our living rooms: sensual, quirky and mysterious.
Claude Debussy - Ariettes oubliées
Samuel Barber - Mélodies passagères
Maurice Ravel - Shéhérazade
Willem Jeths - Les Chats
English
