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NRC Handelsblad interviewing article September 22, 2026.

September 22, 2026, sharing a very nice long interviewing article from NRC Handelsblad, by Coen van Zwol, photos Chris Keulen and fans. Translation Diana D. Le André Rieu is the Netherlands' biggest music phenomenon: 500 platinum albums, and with 11.5 million tickets sold, he ranks somewhere between Beyoncé and Madonna Both André Rieu and Pierre Rieu join the conversation with journalist editor Coen van Zwol. After another series of sold-out Vrijthof concerts this summer in Maastricht, André Rieu will be touring Europe in the coming months with his Johann Strauss Orchestra—the largest private orchestra in the world. André Rieu: “For me, it’s always about direct contact with the audience. Otherwise, you might as well just put on a record.” André Rieu (76) looks a bit pale, a week before his annual series of twelve concerts at the Vrijthof in Maastricht. He stayed up too late last night to watch the Germany-Ecuador soccer match. “1-2. Those Germans must be mortified,” he beams. It’s June 26, and Maastricht is sweltering under a heat wave. Yesterday, it was 38°C. Yet at dusk, André Rieu still took a short video of himself marching through the hilly countryside with the Koninklijke Harmonie Sainte Cécile Eijsden. “They’ll be playing at the Vrijthof shortly. Before we start ‘Il Silenzio’ there, I’ll tell the audience that every little village in Limburg has a brass band and that’s why we have such amazing brass players. But I wasn’t satisfied with the images of Limburg on the background screen.” Son Pierre Rieu: “I thought: 'You’re not going to let those recordings go ahead because of the heat.'” André: “They also said, ‘We’re not going to put those suits on, you know.’ But then they said, ‘Okay, if that’s what André wants.’ And it wasn’t so bad—there was a gentle breeze. Up and down twice, and we were done.” In Limburg, André Rieu’s word is law. He’s a perfectionist who insists on punctuality and can fly off the handle if a technician visibly walks through the frame during a concert. Everything has to be just right. He says he still gets pretty nervous before concerts—especially about his scripts in all those languages. This summer, Maastricht is hosting the Vrijthof Concerts for the twentieth time. The city is plastered with posters, the Markt turns into a parking lot for tour buses, and 8,000 seats await Rieu fans on the Vrijthof. From the outdoor dining areas, another 4,000 people will watch the concert as part of a dinner package—the concerts attract some 150,000 visitors. André Rieu is the Netherlands’ biggest music phenomenon. His record sales have gone platinum 500 times worldwide; according to Pollstar, the concert industry’s data site, he is the 14th-biggest live act of the 21st century with 11.5 million tickets sold: slightly bigger than Madonna, slightly smaller than Beyoncé. His YouTube channel, [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAaX9NjMCos_Qwz3n41eUgg, has 6.96 million subscribers, and his 845 videos garner over 4 billion views]. And his Johann Strauss Orchestra is the largest private orchestra in the world, with annual revenue of around 70 million euros. His son Pierre (45), managing director of André Rieu Productions, wasn’t too thrilled about this interview. Dad had already agreed to it, but he really needs to focus on the concerts. “But you’re welcome to stay—you’re here now anyway.” Pierre always pops up somewhere during concerts: in the choir, as a bagpiper. It’s a tradition. He was already working for his father as a teenager: soundchecks, technical work, planning tours. “I’ve done almost everything within this organization. When I was eleven, I was already riding in a truck like that—I was allowed to press the button for the tailgate. Nobody took that away from me.” The downside was that he was saddled with too much responsibility far too early, Pierre recently complained on Nieuwsuur. He often had to keep an eye on his father instead of the other way around. Now he does so gladly, he says. “My department is big, but Pierre’s department is wise,” says André.

Ever since he was sidelined for three months in 2011 due to an infection in his vestibular system, André Rieu has been more mindful of his health. Pierre: “When Dad gets sick, everything here comes to a halt. While on tour in Mexico, he was sidelined for a while—that’s a financial loss amounting to millions.” His company already needs about 1.3 million euros per month even when he’s not on tour, so André Rieu exercises daily, no longer drinks alcohol, and takes a nap before every performance. At the Vrijthof On Thursday, July 2, the Eijsden brass band will march across the Vrijthof as a warm-up. Volunteers in red piccolo uniforms will show the audience to their seats; the stage is a quasi-Greek temple with a huge screen on which natural landscapes and cityscapes will be projected. Fans come from all over the world. I speak with Vicky and Chris from Guildford, England, who had Rieu on their bucket list. “Once you’re over seventy, you never know how much time you have left.” A couple from Australia was at the Concertgebouw yesterday for the Stravinsky concert. They say you enjoy Rieu in a completely different way. Wil and Minke from Haarlem, who have been following Rieu for thirty years, received tickets from their daughters. They’re thrilled that from row seven, you can almost touch André Rieu. At nine o’clock sharp, Pierre welcomes his father to the Vrijthof. André Rieu leads his orchestra through the audience to the stage: the men in tailcoats, the women dressed as Disney princesses. This entrance from the audience was once a practical necessity, Rieu explains later, when he moved from theaters to event halls and the orchestra could no longer wait behind a curtain. “But it works wonderfully, because it immediately draws the audience in.” With André Rieu, you’re not supposed to sit still. His repertoire is a medley of light classical, marches, operettas, pop music, movie themes, and schlager, with the Viennese waltz as its constant anchor. The setlist varies, but the structure doesn’t: it’s an emotional roller coaster of serious and lighthearted moments, with highlights such as the entrance of his three Platin Tenors or 150 dancing couples from Maastricht waltzing through the audience. André Rieu acts as a “Stehgeiger”—a violinist who also conducts—linking the audience and the orchestra with casual banter. True fans know his lines by heart. About pan flute player Michel Tirabosco, who was born without hands. About the first time he rehearsed with his orchestra in the winter of 1987, in a freezing- cold school building and warmed his fingers with a mug of hot soup made by his wife, Marjorie. Flutist Teun Ramaekers stands up: he was there back then, and tonight he’ll once again get hit with a foam hammer when he lets loose with a jazzy solo. Another founding member, clarinetist Manoe Konings, is drinking “on the sly” behind Rieu's back, as usual—this time, a stolen glass of sparkling champagne. No Schmalz without Scherz (No sentimentality without a joke): on stage, André Rieu is a father figure who sometimes raises an eyebrow menacingly, but good-naturedly lets his authority be undermined by the mischievous troublemakers in the orchestra and the audience. After the intermission, the excitement builds toward the grand finale, complete with fake snow and streamer cannons. “We’re done for now; you all need to go to bed,” Rieu calls out. “No,” the audience replies, like naughty children. “Go to sleep!” “No!” This is followed by an endless string of encores: swaying turns into dancing, and the waltz gives way to Maastricht hits and party songs. The audience waves napkins and cheers for the fireworks.

I hear that André Rieu enjoys those encores the most. That’s true, he says a week after the Vrijthof concerts. His love for the waltz began with his father’s concerts. “That was heavy stuff—Beethoven, Ravel, or Messiaen. But at the end, the lights would come on and he’d play a waltz by Strauss or Lehár as the grand finale. As a child, I thought that atmosphere was fantastic; you could see the audience perk up.” Unlike his father, he actively engages the audience throughout the entire concert. “I know exactly how to build up to that climax over the course of two hours. It’s kind of like good sex. First, a very long foreplay, and then…” “That was quite a long orgasm,” I say: seven or eight rounds. Rieu: “Yeah, but that’s nice, isn’t it! Afterward, they’re really satisfied, completely spent. Sex is the best thing there is, isn’t it? Oh my, what am I saying?” The Rieu Family There was never any chance for son Pierre to join the orchestra. “Dad tried to get me into it; I still have photos from my violin lessons: I’m deathly pale, and every muscle in my face is tense. So we stopped that. As a child, Dad was determined to play an instrument himself; he knows how much suffering that caused.” André Rieu: “I didn’t choose a musical career for myself—it was chosen for me. I had to play the oboe and the piano; the teacher was a terrible person. I was also in the church choir, and every Wednesday and Saturday, I had singing lessons and solfège. It was incredibly boring, but I had to do it, didn’t I?” He did enjoy the violin, though. “I had a very nice and pretty 18-year-old blonde as my teacher. I thought her vibrato was so beautiful, the way she demonstrated it. I was incredibly proud when I could do it too. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a violinist.” But he preferred to play outside. André Rieu: “Mom would yell ‘Practice!’ from upstairs whenever she heard I was getting distracted. Beethoven was dragged out of bed at night by his drunk father. ‘Go on, play!’ Chopin, too. I thought: I’m not going to do that to my own children; I don’t want to force them.” Pierre: “No, we had other things to do.” André Rieu’s father was André Rieu Sr. (1917–1992), a Catholic Dutchman who conducted the Limburg Symphony Orchestra (LSO) from 1949 to 1981. André Rieu: “Back then, you were a conductor for life. Willem van Otterloo, Rogier’s father, also led the Residentie Orchestra for half his life. After twenty or thirty years, an orchestra like that would start to run less smoothly. Times changed, but the conductor didn’t.” At the Rieus’ home, only serious classical music was played—Brahms, Beethoven—and well-known soloists and composer Francis Poulenc were regular guests—Rieu Sr. had a soft spot for contemporary French classical music. He himself found the atmosphere stifling. “It just wasn’t fun at home. My oldest sister couldn’t handle it mentally. My other sister passed away; then comes me, followed by my brother Robert, who fled to Marseille and spent his entire life there as a cellist with the opera. Then I have another brother and a younger sister—they’re the youngest ones. I don’t have much contact with them.” Rieu was a musical talent; he attended the conservatories in Maastricht, Liège, and Brussels, and took lessons from Herman Krebbers, the violinist whose charisma he admired. Rieu graduated from the conservatory with a Grand Prix, but in the mid-1970s found himself in a “late adolescence.” “When I met my wife Marjorie, I didn’t know anything about The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. I caught up on that.” He considered opening a pizzeria. “Pizza Paganini—the idea was that I’d sometimes come out of the kitchen to play the violin for the customers.” That didn’t happen, “and thank goodness for that.” In 1978, Rieu became a violinist with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra: he found the experience bureaucratic, routine, and joyless. To earn some extra money, he joined the chamber orchestra I Glissandi, which later became the Maastricht Salon Orchestra. André Rieu: “Salon music from the early 20th century was coming into fashion at the time; the Hague Residentie Orchestra was the first to take it up. For them, it was just a bit of dabbling, a hobby. I took it very seriously. Marjorie said, 'You play ‘Bummel Petrus’—a well-known salon piece—as if it were Beethoven." His salon orchestra gained a reputation for special events such as the Mother’s Day concert in Heerlen or the “Hieringbiete-konzèr” in Maastricht on Ash Wednesday after Carnival, when Lent is ushered in with herring and beer. He even scored a top-10 hit in Belgium: Toselli’s “Serenade” featuring a nightingale as soloist.

More than awful André Rieu: “My parents thought that salon orchestra was more than awful. I didn’t care—they’d kicked me out of the house anyway. When I started dating Marjorie, it was pretty much like the Hiroshima bomb. Marjorie and her family weren't good enough for them; everything was always about status and hierarchy. It was really harsh. They sent a registered letter saying, 'We’d rather not have you over anymore. I remember what a relief it was to live in a regular little apartment, among regular people. Then the doorbell would ring, and the woman who lived downstairs would come up and ask, 'Hey, Jo, want to meet up sometime?' And my in-laws were my biggest fans.” But André Rieu refuses to accept that his popular repertoire is a rebellion against his father. “I’ve always been different from my family—maybe because I was cared for by the district nurse for the first three months; my mother had anemia. That’s when your destiny is set.” His mother belittled his talent and his choices, though she did call when the Maastricht Salon Orchestra was performing on the radio from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. “Then suddenly it was interesting after all.” André Rieu Sr., who considered Johann Strauss a genius, attended “half a performance” of his Johann Strauss Orchestra before his death and sent a note. “Saying that he did, after all, have respect for what I was doing now. But that was just a little note, you know. It was almost impossible to have a conversation with him toward the end of his life.” Still, he does have something in common with his father, he says. “He was also a smooth talker, just like me. He would perform Messiaen’s ‘Les Oiseaux’ for schoolchildren and explain it to them beforehand. The board called him out on it, saying it was too childish. And his rapport with the audience was very authoritative, like a teacher.” I remind Rieu of an old quote. He once reproached his father—when the latter was conducting the Leipzig Opera—for the fact that the audience could see nothing of him but two hands and a baton. “It’s all about the music,” said Rieu Sr. “With my orchestra, it’s all about me,” replied Rieu Jr. He says he would phrase it differently now. “It was once Wagner’s idea to cram the orchestra into an orchestra pit like that in Bayreuth, to serve the Gesamtkunstwerk (Total work of art). For me, it’s always about direct contact with the audience. Otherwise, you might as well just put on a record.” Shostakovich In 1988, Rieu expanded his project to include the Johann Strauss Orchestra—modeled after the English “Strauss Nights,” featuring Viennese waltzes and ballet. The orchestra toured Dutch and German theaters and concert halls with great success, but remained under the radar of the national press. That is, until 1994, when, after much lobbying in Hilversum, he managed to convince someone from the record label Universal to attend a concert in Harlingen. That person was enthusiastic: Universal released André Rieu’s rendition of Shostakovich’s “Second Waltz” as a single. It spent 52 weeks on the charts, and his album Strauss & Co sold better in the Netherlands than Michael Jackson’s Thriller. André Rieu became a phenomenon; he performed during halftime at the Ajax-Bayern Munich soccer game. The slogan: “No house, but Strauss.” Universal saw him as a one-hit wonder, Rieu says now. “After Strauss & Co, they pretty much kept my second album under wraps, even though it still sold 300,000 copies. They thought I was another Berdien Stenberg—one little hit, and then we can all go home.” Pierre Rieu: “To record executives, we’re not a sexy product. No afterparty at the nightclub where they all get to have a little fun… (makes a sniffing sound). More like a cozy glass of wine, a brie sandwich, and a croquette.” André: “Do you remember when we were invited by Lucian Grainge, the head of Universal in Los Angeles? As a thank-you for all our platinum records? What a bunch of scumbags.” Pierre: “Such a tall tower—with every floor, the secretaries got prettier and their skirts got shorter. So, we were waiting for our appointment, with loud R&B blaring from that office. A group of people who looked like they’d been drinking came walking out, and then it was our turn. The place was covered with photos of Grainge with Princess Diana and Elton John. Nothing to do with us, of course.” André: “He didn’t want to be caught in our company.”

Near-Death Experience Nevertheless, in the 21st century, André Rieu conquered half the world: Europe, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Until he nearly went bankrupt in 2009. André Rieu: “I’m not really one for budgets; I’m more of a ‘That sounds fun, let’s do it!’ kind of guy. We had our big breakthrough in Australia in 2008—it was almost absurd. We had the entire top ten, and then Beyoncé came on top of that. We went from performing in event halls to stadiums. I thought, ‘We have to offer something extra there.’” He had been inspired by a concert in the garden of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, and asked his son Pierre to build a full-scale replica of the palace for the stadium tour “Romantic Night in Vienna.” “So that’s what he did, in his youthful enthusiasm.” The set was 125 meters long, 35 meters high, and 30 meters deep, featuring two ice rinks for figure skaters, 14 carriages drawn by 36 horses, and a replica of Schönbrunn’s ballroom with 350 chandeliers. It weighed 600 metric tons and contained 160 kilometers of steel and aluminum. The deployment required a battalion of 500 men. A logistical nightmare. Pierre: “That tour in Australia was a huge success; everything was sold out. We made 26.5 million euros, but the costs came to 29 million.” André: “Our debt rose to more than 30 million euros. One Saturday morning, a bunch of guys from Rabobank showed up at our house. They came to see what they could take from us.” Pierre: “Some very angry guys.” André: “I called Universal and my promoter in Germany. They each promised me 5 million on the spot—after all, I was their goose that laid the golden eggs. Then the bankers called headquarters in Utrecht and decided not to pull the plug after all. If I could raise 10 million euros in three minutes, the rest would follow.” Pierre: “The following year, everything went like clockwork, and we made 20 million euros in profit. We made a breakthrough in the United Kingdom, partly thanks to YouTube videos of that Schönbrunn set. In the long run, it was a fantastic investment.” André: “England was really slow to catch on; at first, they didn’t like ABBA there either. I know what those British record executives said: ‘My God, not another James Last.’ They’re pretty arrogant.” After that business-related near-death experience, André Rieu promised to adopt a more modest approach from then on—but his dream of bigger and grander things remains. For example, there was recently a stir when the investigative platform Follow the Money reported that in 2024, André Rieu, along with Governor Emile Roemer, lobbied European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to secure a European subsidy of 10 to 15 million euros. He wanted to use the money to fund a massive choir of 150 singers from all over Europe to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss’s birth in 2025. Pierre Rieu: “Von der Leyen hinted that it wouldn’t go over well for a commercial enterprise like ours to receive a European cultural grant. After that conversation, we decided to drop the idea.” Over the past ten years, Pierre Rieu has been very busy reclaiming the rights from record labels that his father had gradually signed away, even during that near-bankruptcy. André Rieu: “An orchestra always needs money, and they take advantage of that. 'Here’s an advance—would you mind signing this?' And then the split for the next thirty years isn’t 80-20 percent but 20-80 percent.” “For a long time, we had Wout van Liempt as our manager—a gentleman-rogue in one of those white camel-hair coats. ‘Mr. Rieu,’ he’d say, ‘I’m offering you 150,000 guilders right here and now for all the rights.’ ‘Come on,’ I’d say, ‘my cleaning lady makes more than that.’ But I figured, why not give it a try?” Last year, his son Pierre celebrated the return of the final piece of the catalog: André Rieu Productions now handles all music and merchandise in-house. And film: concert films in theaters are becoming a separate revenue stream.

Three Crying Men In late July, André Rieu is working on a new concert film shot at the Vrijthof, which is set to hit theaters in late August. He proudly shows me around his rehearsal space and recording studio, which was recently renovated and decorated in the style of a Viennese ballroom. “We want to stay up to date technically. Two years ago, my guys told me that Dolby Surround is being replaced by Dolby Atmos in movie theaters. An added bonus is that Spotify offers you something extra in that format.” In the video editing suite, they search for 1.08 seconds of footage from pan flutist Tirabosco’s performance that’s gone missing. A rough cut of the concert film is made during the performances; Rieu then fine-tunes it and casts the audience for the “reaction shots”: emotional fans, but nothing over the top. “Three years ago, without asking me, they posted a video online of the song ‘Voilà,’ sung by Emma Kok [the then-15-year-old singer who suffers from gastroparesis and can only eat through a feeding tube]. Nothing happened—maybe ten likes or so. Then I found three men crying, and we edited them into the video at just the right moment. After that, it got 110 million likes. I’m the one who brings that emotion to it.” Rieu’s films avoid close-up shots of hands playing instruments, as seen in classical concert recordings. “Little fingers on the piccolo or a bow across the bridge of the double bass: does that give you chills or warm your heart?” That emphasizes virtuosity and creates distance. “The whole musician has to be in the frame.” And what else? Don’t show the timpanist during a sensitive piece. “And when everyone sings along at the end—lalala di-da, di-da, lalalala di-da—show the whole square in the frame, not just individuals.” The Rieu Experience He is on top of everything, says André Rieu. How much longer? For his 80th birthday tour in 2029, he recently held auditions in Blackpool for a hundred ballroom dancers, and he wants them—just like on the Vrijthof—to waltz through the audience all over the world. He plays the violin less during performances than he used to, focusing instead on conducting. “I don’t want to end up like Joe Biden. The agreement with Marjorie is: if she thinks I’m too old, I’ll stop immediately. This year, I made it through the jury." Pierre: “As a family, we have a veto. We once saw the aging Pavarotti, and with all due respect: it’s a shame no one told him, ‘Luciano, dear, it’s been a good run.’ He was wheeled to the microphone in a mobility scooter, couldn’t hit his notes, and was out of breath.” Last year, Maastricht held a debate on the unthinkable: a future without Rieu. A Limburg “cultural entrepreneur” proposed converting the Bonbonnière in Maastricht—the former city theater dating from 1788—into an André Rieu Experience, featuring a Viennese grand café where Rieu concerts would play nonstop. Pierre: “The Elvis Experience would be a huge success in Las Vegas. But I think you have to watch out for self-aggrandizement. My father has made a lot of people happy, but everything is fleeting.” Can he imagine ever performing as a hologram, like ABBA? Or as an AI version? André Rieu: “Well, no. I understand they’ve also made a statue of me. But they can wait until after I’m gone to put it up.” And that could take a long time, he says with a wink. He used to think he’d live to be 120; now he’s aiming for 140. “I’m sometimes in touch with internist Andrea Maier about healthy aging; she was a guest on Zomergasten (TV program). I found one of her statements particularly striking: ‘Aging is a disease.’ A colleague of hers believes that the first person to live to be 1,000 years old has already been born. So, who knows.” André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra will be touring Central Europe in the coming months. Starting December 11, 2026, the traditional Christmas concerts will take place at the MECC in Maastricht and at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on January 9, 2027. Tickets: https://www.andrerieu.com/en

Replica of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.

Design Jaya Tgal: André Rieu, Maestro of the Universe

Emma Kok, performing with André. from our own archive.