Lunchconcert Muziekgebouw Eindhoven

On the 5th of June, Ilse and her fellow students performed in a lunchconcert accompanied by Martien Maas. Ilse performed Berlioz' La mort d'Ophélie, Wagner's Welch Wunderbar Erwarten from the Opera Das Liebesverbot, and a part of Ophelia's mad scene from Thomas' Hamlet.

Masterclass by Claron McFadden

Final Exam performance - En Attendant Roméo

On the 22nd of May, Ilse stepped onto the stage at the Globetheatre in Diever for her Graduation performance. The show was inspired by Shakespeare and about waiting for a perfect love that never comes. It was made up of arias, songs and spoken text. For the staging, Ilse had help from Raoul op 't Hoog. Martien Maas accompanied most of the performance on piano, with two Dowland pieces accomanied by Tomasz Podolak on lute. For the final song Brennan de Graaf joined the stage on clarinet.  

Lunchconcert

On the 8th of May, Ilse and her fellow students performed in a lunchconcert accompanied by Martien Maas. Ilse performed Berlioz' La mort d'Ophélie.

Julia45

For the 45th birthday concert that Julia Zaytseva performed. Ilse joined her on stage for Rossini's Duetto Buffo di due Gatto". A wonderful way to celebrate and thanks Julia, who was her first singing teacher and without whom she would have never become the singer she is today.

Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem

In April of 2025, there was another collaboration project between the Fontys Chamber Choir and Brabantkoor. For Ilse, her third and last as a part of her Ba in Tilburg. This time they performed Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms in a setting with two grand pianos, behind them Ben Martin Weijand and Joren van der Veken, and with Han Vogel on timpani. This project was led by conductor Louis Buskens and performed on the 11th of April in Concertzaal Tilburg

Photo by Adelaide Rosina Photography 

Lulu - with Opera Spanga

Up to the four performances in January 2025, Ilse and her fellow singing students worked with Corina van Eijk, the artistic director of Opera Spanga, on Lulu. For this opera project, scenes were composed with a libretto based on Wedekind's Lulu plays. The three composers were Jonatan Repokari, Kiete van der Laan, and Isabella Calmet Cox Larco. The ensemble consisted of 13 musicians who were also Fontys students at that time. Ilse portrayed the character 'Schön'.

For this project's prologue and epilogue, a film was made and projected onto the backwall of the stage. The students worked with Kozui-productions to film these scenes. Additionally the prologue was also set to music which was pre-recorded. For this, Fontys' Rockacademy worked with the ensemble and the singers in the Concertzaal in Tilburg to record the piece.

Photo by Adelaide Rosina Photography 

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in Concert - with Brabantkoor

As a soprano in Brabantkoor, Ilse was a part of the choir for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in Concert with Symphonyorkest Vlaanderen and led by Shih-Hung Young. The five sold-out concerts took place in Ahoy Rotterdam on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd of December. 

Photo by Daria Miasoedova

Together with mezzo-soprano Suzanne Charité and pianist Toon Biermans, Ilse performed A Story I Wish I Was Told, a song cycle written by Kiete van der Laan. The première of this piece was in May of 2024 and can be found below. The second performance of this piece, this time in Tivoli Vredenburg on the 25th of October. The piece was performed in a more intimate setting in Dynamo in Eindhoven on the 7th of November.

The livestream of the performance in Tivoli can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

Ilse sang in a lunch concert in the Muziekgebouw Eindhoven. In this performance she sang Three Songs of the Sea (1911) by Roger Quilter. The Sea-Bird, Moonlight and By the Sea were all written and composed by Quilter and use beautiful imagery of the sea and birds to portray a range of emotions.  

For this concert, Ilse was accompanied by pianist Martien Maas.

The recording of this performance can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

As a soprano in Brabantkoor, Ilse joined the incredibly moving Liberation Concert on the Netherlands American Cemetery Margraten on the 12th of September 2024.

The repertoire that the choir sang consisted of the American and Dutch Anthems, John Williams' Hymn to the Fallen, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (part IV), and 'We'll meet again' 

The link to the livestream of this performance can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

Photo by Focus22

2023-2024

On the 7th of June, Ilse had a spoken role in Cortigiana Honesta, which was performed in Tivoli Vredenburg. 

This performance was Stella Voutoufianaki's Master exam and included Kali Baldou on flute and Martien Maas on Piano.

The recording of this performance can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

Together with mezzo-soprano Suzanne Charité and pianist Toon Biermans, Ilse performed the première of A Story I Wish I Was Told, a song cycle written by Kiete van der Laan. This performance was part of the composers' lunch concert in Muziekgebouw Eindhoven on the 2nd of May 2024. The piece was staged/choreographed by Raya Mathiak.

About the Song Cycle: 'Kiete van der Laan embodies their search and struggle as queer in "A Story I Wish I Was Told." Two singers portray Van der Laan's inner conflict, in her own words. "A Story I Wish I Was Told" is a moving and intense journey from the first moment they discovered their feelings for women, initially denying them, to their struggle with gender.'

The recording of this performance can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

On the 24th of April, Ilse opened the English Song concert of the Fontys Classical Voice department on the Abdijpodium in Berkel-Enschot. Together with Tomasz Podolak on Lute, she sang two songs by Dowland. She also performed three Shakespeare songs set to music by different composers, for which she was accompanied on piano by Frédérique Lande. Video recordings of the pieces with Lute can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

On the 19th and the 20th of April, Tilburgs Studentenkoor (TISK), led by Sil van den Hout, performed the Fauré Requiem with Toon IJzermans on the organ. For these performances, Ilse was hired as the soprano soloist to sing Pie Jesu. As a member of TISK, Ilse also participated as soprano in the choir for the Requiem.

Photo by Rens Bressers Fotografie 

From the 8th to the 15th of April, Ilse spent a week studying at the Cesare Pollini Conservatory in Padova with Stefano Patarino. This was the in-person part of a Blended Intensive Programme organised through Erasmus. Throughout this week, Ilse participated in daily Italian Diction classes, but the main focus of the Programme was learning how to sing Recitativo Secco. For this project, recitatives from Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro' were used.

On the 27th of March, Ilse and her fellow students in the Fontys AMPA chamber choir joined Brabantkoor in the project Reflections on Nicolas. In this project an orchestra made up off Fontys Students, Brabantkoor together with the Fontys AMPA chamber choir, and Souvenir Jeugdkoor performed Britten's Nicolas Cantate, with Soloist Twan van der Wolde singing the part of Nicolas. This project also included the premiere performances of two newly composed pieces: Jonatan Repokari's 'Väinämöinen builds the magic kantele' and Enrico Ferri's 'The Shephardess and the Fresco'. In the latter piece, Ilse sung a small soprano solo.  

Photo by Rens Bressers Fotografie 

On Bach's birthday in 2024, Ilse performed 4 times in Tilburg for Sounding Bodies' Happy Bachdag. For these performance, Ilse was accompanied by Amber Mertens on piano and sang "Blute nur" from the Matthäus Passion. She performed together with Marialena Papadopoulou and Rosalie Ardts.

In Febuary of 2024, Ilse worked on the role of Sylvia from Mozart's Ascanio in Alba. This project included 4 weeks of rehearsals with director Wim Berings and pianist Meri Somkhieva Hovsepyan and three performances. For this project, Mozart's Italian opera was combined with spoken parts of English translations. This made the project a very interesting and varied experience.

Photo by Rens Bressers Fotografie 

Ilse performed in her first lunchconcerts in October of 2023. The first of these concerts was in the Muziekgebouw in Eindhoven and the second in Tivoli Vredeburg in Utrecht. For these concerts she sang two staged duets with Suzanne Charité. They were accompanied on piano by Martien Maas. Ilse also provided the spoken introductions to the arias and opera scenes that her fellow performers sang.

The livestream of this lunch concert in Tivoli Vredenburg can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

2022-2023

In May 2023, Ilse performed in the final exam of Sara Nijsten. Together they performed Rossini's Duetto Buffo di due Gatti accompanied on piano by Joep Berkers. Additionally, they sang Britten's This Little Babe together with Suzanne Charité and accompanied on Harp by Laura van der Kloet.

Videos of this performance can be found under the Archive tab on this website.

In the second half of 2022, Ilse formed a small a cappella choir with Suzanne Charité, Marialena Papadopoulou, and Ira Girlea. The four focused on classical-folk music and performed a diverse repertoire for four voices. 

2021-2022

At the end of the 2021-2022 academic year, Ilse was a part of the choir for Vera Keijsers Graduation concert Veritas. This concert took place in the Nieuwe Vorst in Tilburg. For this concert she sang second alto in the a capella choir piece Lux Aurumque.

Starting in early 2022, Ilse was a part of a small a cappella choir, made up of seven singers from her study. Together, they performed four of the five pieces from Poulenc's Petites Voix.

In the first half of 2022, Ilse Schuit was a part of the choir in a project called Reflections on our Time. This project was in collaboration with Brabantkoor and  Chamber Orchestra 'Kamarata Zuid'. As first alto in this project, she sung in Child of our Time by Micheal Tippett. The project also included premieres of two works of composition students: Amin Amel Ebrahimi's Shere Khoonin and Bart Michiel's I sit and look out. The concerts of this project took place in the Muziekgebouw Eindhoven and the Concertzaal Tilburg.

Photo by Rens Bressers Fotografie 

After the Tippett project, Ilse continued working with Amin. She sang in the choir for his final exam, Verräter III, in the Concertzaal Tilburg. In this concert the choir sang again in Shere Khoonin and also in the piece Hargez, both composed by Amin himself.

Photo by Rens Bressers Fotografie 

In the second half of 2021, Ilse participated in her first Opera project. She was a part of the choir in the four-show production of Dido and Aeneas, which was directed by Sybrand van der Werf. In this production, the choir had a big role on stage, next to their vocal role. The opera was performed twice in the Muziekzaal at Fontys in Tilburg and twice in the Willem II Toonzaal in Den Bosch.

Photo by Rens Bressers Fotografie 

2019

In March 2019, Ilse sung in the Princess Christina Concours in Groningen. For this performance she was accompanied on piano by her friend and now Conservatory of Amsterdam graduate Kees Kruit.

Photo by Majanka Fotografie