The MTV generation is going classical with the Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra

For its second season, the Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra is giving the concerts in its home city in the renovated Amsterdam RAI Theatre. The ASO made its debut last year in the Beurs van Berlage. The reviews were positive about the youthful orchestra, but the concert hall's acoustics were dreadful. The new hall should do justice to the orchestra's performances.

The ASO will also be playing elsewhere in the country, including performances in Leeuwarden, Rotterdam and Tilburg. The programme for the evening is unusual: "A video screen, a chat with the conductor and a repertoire that is anything but run of the mill. (…) You can certainly say that the attempt to break away from the inflexible traditions of symphonic music has worked," according to the Brabants Dagblad newspaper. Which is exactly what the conductor Peter Sánta wants to do.

As well as being the conductor, Sánta is the orchestra's founder and its business manager. Under his inspirational leadership, the ASO is going to make a name for itself – and Sánta will use every possible means to do this. For example, he has plans to buy the radio station Classic FM and he recently registered the name Classix with an intellectual property agency.

The aim of the ASO is to make the MTV generation, people in their late twenties and thirties, enthusiastic about classical music. Anyone who goes to an ASO concert does not have to worry about what some people think of as tuneless modern stuff: the repertoire consists of some of the classics of classical music, guaranteed to delight the audience.

Elfanie toe Laer PR de Merkplaats