Philips Symfonie Orkest en Akari Bastiaens met het Pianoconcert van Grieg

On a musical adventure

This afternoon, the Philips Symphony Orchestra takes you on a musical adventure with, among others, young piano talent Akari Bastiaens (14). The concert opens with the overture to The Boatswain's Mate , an energetic and humorous overture by British composer Ethel Smyth, inspired by her opera about love and adventure. Akari Bastiaens then brings Grieg's famous Piano Concerto to life. Akari gained her first stage experience when she was just five years old. At the age of six, she won the Steinway Piano Competition Belgium. Since 2019, she has been studying at the Junior Conservatory Maastricht and since 2022 she has also been an academy student at the Davidsbundler Music Academy in The Hague. In 2025, she won the prestigious Princess Christina Competition in The Hague. Die Seejungfrau by Alexander von Zemlinsky, a contemporary and stylistic peer of Gustav Mahler, is an enchanting symphonic poem for large symphony orchestra, inspired by Andersen's fairy tale, full of dramatic orchestral sounds and dreamy melodies.