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The 2025/26 academic year is a year of celebration: from November through June, HKU’s Utrechts Conservatorium is marking its 150th anniversary. The highlight is the grand finale The Treasure of Utrecht, taking place on Sunday 28 June. A musical parade from Domplein to Mariaplaats and the re-premiere of a long-forgotten composition by Louis Andriessen from 1970: De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham.
This spectacle is a musical homage to Utrecht’s greatest composer of all time, and a gathering of all the disciplines represented within HKU’s Utrechts Conservatorium. The carillon of the Dom Tower will participate both during the procession and in the concert, alongside musicians on the streets and at Mariaplaats.
About the piece - De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham
Louis Andriessen, born and raised in Utrecht and descended from a well-known family of Utrecht composers, wrote De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham in 1970, commissioned by the City of Utrecht for the Utrecht Music School, then located on Dom Square. The music is written as a graphic composition on a nine-metre-long roll of wallpaper, adorned with shapes, musical symbols and texts. Andriessen was inspired by the Tintin comic De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham (published in 1944).
The music is not written in traditional Western notation of its unconventional notation. Instead, it's a graphical representation that – in the words of Andriessen: 'demands a great deal of creativity' from the performers. The score includes directions like 'play a chord your mother likes,' 'play a chord with as many tones as possible' and 'invent new chords by listening attentively to each other.' It’s uncertain whether the piece has ever been performed before.
The work was first performed in 1971 by pupils of the Utrecht music school. and then disappeared from the radar for a long time. By now, it has resurfaced again and deserves an official re-premiere, 56 years after its conception.
Student involvement
Students from all departments at the HKU Utrechts Conservatorium will work on parts of the score during the 2025/26 academic year. This will be done partly under the supervision of teachers Anne-Maartje Lemereis (also former Composer of the Netherlands), Esmée Olthuis, and Konrad Kosseleck. Second-year students from the Music in Education programme will collaborate with primary and secondary school pupils in Utrecht to create new graphic compositions based on the original score, assisted by Lemereis.
Direction
The conductor has a special, and very liberal, role: rather than 'directing,' the conductor will act more as a coordinator, which aligns with Andriessen’s own vision. Choire conducting students and Musician 3.0 students will prepare for the performance using the kobranie method, a musical improvisation style in which groups play together under visual guidance from a lead figure. This method suits the free-form nature of Andriessen’s composition.
Grande finale
The performance of De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham takes place on Mariaplaats. Prior to the performance, a musical procession of students, alumni and pupils from primary and secondary schools in Utrecht will march from Domplein to Mariaplaats. Along the way, they will play Der Fluyten Lust-hof by Jacob van Eyck, the blind carillon player of the Dom.
Upon arriving at Mariaplaats, they join other musicians to form an orchestra of around 300 musicians and perform Andriessen's composition. Music also flows from the windows on all floors of the main building, with singers and wind players amplifying the musicians in the square below. The carillonneur of the Dom Tower plays live alongside the musicians on Mariaplaats.
A projection of the graphic score is displayed on a large screen in front of the main building, allowing attendees to follow the composition live.
Pre-shows
Parts of the composition of De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham can also be heard prior to the performance:
Sunday 5 June at 8 p.m. in the Atrium of Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, prior to the concert Goede Maten (Louis Andriessen & Misha Mengelberg), which starts at 8.30 p.m. in the Bimhuis.
Sunday 28 June under the dome roof of Utrecht Central Station during Composer's Day.
With thanks to Louis Andriessen Foundation
The score of Louis Andriessen's De Schat van Scharlaken Rackham (1970) has been made available to HKU Utrecht Conservatory especially for this performance by the Louis Andriessen Foundation.