Roots: music as a searching for roots and connection

Roots: music as a search for origins and connection

What does it mean to feel at home? To feel connected, or alienated? For centuries, music has been a language in which such questions are expressed. It carries stories of migration, diaspora, origins, and memory, stories that transcend generations and bridge the past and the present. 

With Roots, De Doelen is launching a new series with a different perspective: programs that show how classical heritage can be questioned, enriched, and transformed time and again. We connect the canon with experimentation, tradition with current events, and programming with dialogue. This first edition, which will take place from October 1 to 4, 2025, focuses on the power of cultural roots.

Music as a carrier of forgotten and new voices  

The program makes visible and audible what has remained underexposed for too long. It offers a stage where bicultural stories resonate and where different traditions meet, reinforce each other, and form new branches. In a city like Rotterdam, shaped by migration and diversity, this becomes a natural and urgent conversation about identity, connectedness, and the future.

Artists Karim Sulayman, Sean Shibe, James Oesi, Djuwa Mroivili, Pavel Kolesnikov, and Samson Tsoy show how personal and cultural roots become intertwined. They demonstrate how music is constantly moving, growing, and opening up to new stories and unexpected perspectives. 

Roots is more than a concert series. It is an invitation to feel how past and present, tradition and innovation flow into each other. A celebration of music as a source of connection in a diverse and vibrant society. 

Don't want to miss out? Experience Roots in its entirety now with a 25% discount.

This project was made possible with financial support from Fonds 21, de Doelen Vrienden en het Doelen Steunfonds.  

James Oesi & Djuwa Mroivili - Adoration

In this program, double bassist James Oesi and pianist Djuwa Mroivili juxtapose well-known composers such as Brahms and Dvořák with lesser-known names such as Florence Price and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Here, you can hear how African-American composers and the tradition of spirituals have influenced Western classical music. An invitation to listen to how the forgotten voices of music history still resonate, and what traces they left behind that we can rediscover?  
 
Wednesday October 1 2025 | 20:15 | Eduard Flipse Zaal 

tickets for James Oesi & Djuwa Mroivili in de Doelen

Pavel Kolesnikov & Samson Tsoy – Bach en Sjostakovitsj 

Russian pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy bring together works by Bach and Sjostakovitsj. Bach wrote his preludes and fugues in the 18th century, while Shostakovich composed his own cycle two centuries later as a kind of response. Juxtaposing these pieces shows how composers continually relate to their musical roots: drawing on traditions, but at the same time translating them to their own time and world. This Roots program focuses on the search for connections between different generations and cultures in music history.

Thursday October 2 2025 | 20:15 | Jurriaanse Zaal

buy your tickets for Pavel Kolesnikov & Samson Tsoy here 

Sean Shibe & Karim Sulayman – Broken Branches 

Tenor Karim Sulayman and guitarist Sean Shibe grew up in the West, but their families come from Lebanon and Japan. In Broken Branches, they blend baroque music, Arabic and Sephardic songs, and contemporary compositions. The result is an intimate recital about migration, memory, and dual identity. A story of personal roots that span continents and the power of music as a place where diverse identities come together. 

Saturday October 4 2025 | 20:15 | Jurriaanse Zaal 

Sean Shibe & Karim Sulayman in Rotterdam – order your tickets here