St. Michael Thorn Wind Orchestra
St. Michael Thorn Wind Orchestra is widely considered as one of the world's finest community wind orchestras. Over and over again, critics have lauded its unique velvet and dark sound, which clearly stands out among many others.
St. Michael was established in 1863 in Thorn, a Dutch village with a flourishing cultural life. The orchestra is highly active within the Netherlands and abroad, and received countless 1st prizes in both national- and international competitions. The orchestra has won the 1st prize at the Kerkrade World Music Contest (WMC) three times with the highest number of points. On May 26th 2018 the orchestra won the European Championship in Brussels with a record score of 97,92 points.
During the last two decades, they gave more than 200 performances in over 50 different concert halls and theatres, at home and abroad, reaching an audience of some 70,000 people. During that period, nearly 250 different compositions were played, nearly 20 hours of radio recordings were made and 18 music CDs were released.
Ivan Meylemans
Chief conductor of St. Michael Thorn is Ivan Meylemans. The Belgian maestro made his first appearance with orchestra back in 1996 when he performed with the ensemble as a trombone soloist. In the following years he worked with St. Michael as a guest conductor on regular bases, which ultimately led to his appointment as chief conductor in 2013.
Ivan Meylemans is one of the most exciting and dynamic conductors to emerge in Europe recent years. From 2007 to 2012 Meylemans was chief conductor of the Chamber Orchestra Bruges (Het Kamerorkest) and he served as assistant of maestro Mariss Jansons at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.
‘I was impressed by his technical ability, his powers of communication to the orchestra, his natural authority and the clarity of his musical ideas.’ (Bernard Haitink about Ivan Meylemans)
