...Chamber Music
Trio Van Hengel
In 2002, Trio Van Hengel was formed Nicole formed a new trio with her colleagues Bas van Hengel and Anneke Veenhoff to participate in the International Van Wassenaer Chamber Music Competition. The three had performed together previously in various ensembles and also as an ad hoc trio and felt that they would have a promising future together. Their hunch was immediately reinforced by leaving the competition with three prizes including the audience's first choice. Since this initial success, the trio has performed in numerous chamber music series in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and was invited to appear as 'artists in residence' in the Festival of Bows and Strings in Poznan, Poland. As well as an evening concert with live Polish radio broadcast, each of the members of the trio performed a solo concerto with the festival orchestra, Arte dei Suonatori. In 2006, Trio Van Hengel released their debut CD to great acclaim. 'Anton Eberl - Grande Sonate', recorded with Ramee, was awarded a '10', the highest accolade, in the highly esteemed Dutch CD magazine, Luister, as well as receiving many glowing reviews from the European CD critics. Since the sad death of Bas in 2008, Nicole and Anneke have been joined by cellist Thomas Pitt. The trio released it's second disc with Ramee 'Mozart, Phantasia' with the long awaited Mozart Grande Sonate together with the Kegelstatt Trio and Mozart's Fantasie in c minor in 2010. More chamber works by Eberl were released on the third disc 'Anton Eberl, Grand Sextetto' in 2011. For more detailed information, please visit the site.
OSMOSIS
Nicole was thrilled to be invited by her wind colleagues to form OSMOSIS. Together with Kate Clark (flute), Ofer Frenkel (oboe), Bart Aerbeydt (horn) and Benny Aghassi (bassoon), Nicole has been performing wind repertoire by early 19th century composers such as Reicha, Danzi, Mengal and Cambini. This repertoire is truly superb and is far too rarely performed, particularly on historical instruments. In 2010 the debut CD was released with Ramée. For this recording OSMOSIS presents Nonets by Onslow and Spohr with the string players from the Nepomuk Fortepiano Quintet; Franc Polman (violin), Elisabeth Smalt (viola), Jan Insinger (cello) and Pieter Smithuijsen (double bass). For more detailed information, please visit the site.
Kwartet André
It was in 1999, during Nicole's studies with Eric Hoeprich in Den Haag, that she became aware of the incredible amount of repertoire for classical clarinet which is yet to be rediscovered. One of the most popular chamber music instrumentations in the 18th century was a wind instrument with three strings. There are countless flute and oboe quartets and also hundreds of clarinet quartets which are simply unknown in today. Nicole decided to found Kwartet André and focus her research into this repertoire. Of course, many pieces the quartet discovers and plays through are fairly mediocre compositions and were intended for amateur musicians in their own music salons but occasionally, they come across a real gem. Quartets by composers such as Pugni or Pichl are fantastic works and deserve to be brought back to light. In 2001, Kwartet André recorded a CD including a première recording of a trio by Anton Polzelli together with quartets by Hummel and Haydn entitled 'Haydn, his Mistress, their Son and his Successor'. The quartet has taken a slight back seat for Nicole over the last couple of years while she was busy having children (!) and focussing on the trio and her orchestral career but her attention will be returning soon to relaunch the quartet and continue her mission to uncover and perform this fantastic repertoire.