Bio

Marieke Koopman was born December 14th 1983. As a daughter of two well known musicians, it wasn’t a surprise she choose a creative and musical life as well.

From a very young age Marieke had a active acting and singing career. Working on several projects with famous Dutch actors and musicians as , Herman van Veen, Joop Stokkermans, Ton Koopman, Nico van der Linden, etc . After finishing her Educations study with a masters degree, Marieke decided to dedicate her life to the combination of the arts and children. From that point on she started teaching children in het arts and began to make plays especially for children. It became her life’s work to show children the wonders of classical music.

Together with Ton Koopman and The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Marieke choreographed the opera ‘King Arthur’ in the summer of 2011. Here she worked with a children choir from the Dordogne. It was a big success. 30 children performed their hearts on stage.

After this project Marieke and Ton Koopman joined forces and started talking about children’s concerts on a big scale. A new power team was born.

In 2013 she got a degree in arts and after writing the script, she started rehearsing for a new big musical project. The play ‘Earwig’, was born. A beautiful story about a girl named Bas who wants to give her grandfather a musical piece for his birthday, but doesn’t remember it anymore. ‘Earwig’ toured The Netherlands in spring and autumn of 2014 and was a major success.
The same year Marieke performed in her own version of ‘Clean Hands’ a matthew passion especially adapted for children with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir and Ton Koopman. ‘Clean Hands’ depicted the well known Matthew story through the eyes of the 10 year old daughter of Pilate: Noleta. It was played on Palm Sunday 2014 for 600 people and it was met with great enthusiasm. In 2017 it was reprised in a big tour through the Netherlands. Playing in Amsterdam, Utrecht etc.

After the success of ‘Earwig’ and ‘Clean Hands’ Ton and Marieke wanted to continue bringing Baroque music to children all over the world. And so the project ‘Caecilia’ was born. A story about two statues who come to live because of the music of an organ. It premiered in the summer of 2015, on the Itineraire Baroque (France), and was met with such great succes that it was reprised on the same festival in 2016. After it’s premiere, Caecilia toured Europe, playing in Barcelona, Lyon, Emden. Both ‘Caecilia’ and ‘Clean Hands’ will return and tour in the season 2017 and 2018.

The latest project of Marieke and Ton Koopman is ‘I am knight’, which premiered the spring 2017 on the Itineraire Baroque in France. Marieke and Ton again joined forces to create a beautiful and inspiring story about two children who long to become knights. Based on the story of ‘Don Quichot’ this musical spectacle enjoyed a very successful first run and will be returning in the season 2018.

In the future Marieke plans to continue working with Ton in making beautiful and touching musical project for children.