Jelle Roozenburg’s Bonsai Orchestra

We are becoming ever more connected, yet sometimes seem increasingly alone. With his thirteen-piece Bonsai Orchestra, guitarist Jelle Roozenburg responds with a musical manifesto: Dis//connect, a new composition about alienation in a world full of technology and individualism. Absurdism is the common thread in this musical and theatrical trip, in which Roozenburg combines punk, ambient, noise, modern classical and electronic music into a potpourri of extremes. At its core it remains jazz, with room for improvisation and the voice of each musician. The piece reflects on the zeitgeist, but above all it is about human connection.

Roozenburg is a guitarist, electronic musician and bandleader, and composes and arranges for the New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, among others. Together with trombonist Louk Boudesteijn he founded the quintet Bonsai Panda, which has released six albums on which jazz, rock, classical music and improvisation come together in a true fever dream. That band forms the foundation of the Bonsai Orchestra. Dis//connect was created within JOC Productions, the talent programme of the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw (JOC). Through this programme, we at BIMHUIS work with the JOC and partners including TivoliVredenburg and Podium Azijnfabriek to give young creators the opportunity to realise a production for a large ensemble.