Roctet

With a permanent line-up of a string octet, Roctet has a special place in the Dutch chamber music landscape.

Since its founding in 2016, Roctet has given a large number of concerts in concert series at home and abroad, as well as live on radio and TV.

The debut CD was released in 2020 Novoselye – Housewarming with the Challenge Records International label. Next to the iconic Octet in E flat major by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and the energetic and tragic Two pieces for string octet by Dmitri Shostakovich, this CD contains the previously unrecorded double quartet 'Novoselye' by the romantic Russian composer Nikolay Afanasyev. The CD was made financially possible by, among other things, a subsidy from the Sena Performers Fund and a successful crowdfunding campaign via Voordekunst.nl.

This debut CD received remarkable attention, not only in the Dutch media, but also from the foreign press (the French Diapason and the American magazine American Music Guide).

In September 2021, Roctet gave a well-received debut in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, after which several concerts followed on stages at home and abroad.

Despite a temporary, forced cut-off due to the Corona pandemic that broke out shortly after the CD presentation, the flying start continued: the ensemble is active on various stages and is buzzing with plans for the future.

In July 2024, Roctet will record his second CD. In addition to Georges Enescu's masterpiece, the CD makes room for rarely played works Doppio Quartetto by Ottorino Respighi and a new work to be written commissioned by Roctet Changes by one of the most famous Dutch composers Theo Loevendie.

Roctet aims to perform existing repertoire (known and unknown), as well as to enter into an adventurous collaboration with leading Dutch and foreign composers of today who have already arrived, and also with promising young composers. We aim to ensure that this special but often underexposed string formation receives greater recognition. In this way we contribute to our ideal of developing the future of the String Octet and making the associated repertoire more widely known and broadened.