To get well into the Christmas spirit, Sunday between 2 and 4 p.m. there will be singing by the Christmas choir Duodektet. This Amsterdam choir has been performing together since 1996, and on Sunday they will do so in the museum’s attic church. You do not need to make reservations for this choir and there are no surcharges.

Vocal Ensemble Duodektet

Consists of sixteen singers who know each other from the rich Amsterdam choral scene and have come together since 1996 to make good music with like-minded souls. With their modest size, the ensemble sings intimate choral works in small and sometimes unexpected venues, but with their musical passion and vocal quality, Duodektet also storms the acoustics of large cathedrals with virtuosic polyphonic works. The repertoire is therefore comprehensive, from early Renaissance to contemporary music. Since 2010, the ensemble has been under the direction of Christiaan Winter. In addition to concerts in Amsterdam and abroad, Duodektet joined vocal ensemble Tout Venant from Haarlem on tours to England where they sang in cathedrals (Peterborough, St.Albans, Ely, Exeter, Wells) and gave concerts in stately homes such as Burghley House and the Music Room at Chantry Court. Duodektet regularly collaborates with members of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and rehearses biweekly on Friday evenings in the chapel of the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis (OLVG Oosterpark Amsterdam).

Christiaan Winter (‘s-Gravenhage 1967)

Christiaan studied church music, organ, choral conducting and carillon at the various professional music courses at the Utrecht School of the Arts. He was a programmer at NCRV radio and church musician at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. He is currently the city carillonneur of Alkmaar, a teacher at the HKU/Nederlandse Beiaardschool, president of Beiaardcentrum Nederland and the Koninklijke Nederlandse Klokkenspel-Vereniging, and last June he received his doctorate from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for a dissertation on the work of his predecessor in the Oude Kerk, the church musician and composer Willem Vogel.

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