French Christmas Classics: Café des Chansons & Charlotte Haesen

Over het evenement

Immerse yourself in the stunning architecture of Amsterdam's breathtaking De Waalse Kerk for the ultimate concert set to awake your understanding of music.

Like a born storyteller, singer Charlotte Haesen brings the chanson to life, allowing even listeners who do not master French to effortlessly grasp the essence of the song. For this special Christmas concert, together with the strings of the Tobalita Quartet, she performs a magnificent repertoire of the most beautiful French‐language winter classics by such personalities as Barbara, Brel, Gainsbourg, Brassens and Piaf, among others. These chansons are about the joy and love that human connection brings. Café des Chansons invites us to dare to be real people this Christmas.
It has been almost 10 years since viola player Odile Torenbeek accidentally discovered the singer Charlotte Haesen at the Noordermarkt in Amsterdam. Odile and Charlotte then decided to create a chansons program with the string quartet as a basis. This involved renowned arrangers such as Paul Prenen, Wijnand van Klaveren, Mascha van Nieuwkerk and Oene van Geel, who managed to 'drape' the chanson around Charlotte's vocal timbre in a special way. Next, Café des Chansons develops: Charlotte Haesen plus four musicians from the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. Three albums on, Charlotte Haesen's voice and the strings of the Tobalita quartet still take you on a moving journey through time.