André Rieu Violinist, Conductor

King of the Waltz, Dutch musical impresario André Rieu has taken the world by storm with his Johann Strauss Orchestra.

- Michael Beek

Together, they travel the globe, filling arenas with joyful music-making to melt even the hardest of hearts. From 2 April to 12 May, they are making a much-anticipated return to the UK, bringing with them opera classics, film themes, romantic ballads and the traditional pieces his loyal audiences have come to expect.

My father was a conductor in my home city of Maastricht, and I played in his symphony orchestra for 11 years. I married Marjorie and we had little children, and a mortgage, so I had to stay. But I remember sitting in that orchestra and decided after one week that I did not want to die there. Nobody spoke about music, only union stuff and whether it was too cold or too hot; they were always complaining. So I created a little salon orchestra and we started to play at weddings and elderly homes. My first hit was TOSELLI's Nightingale Serenade. I brought it to the radio stations, and one of the radio guys had a bird in his room – I think it was a canary. Whenever he played my Toselli, the bird would start to whistle! So, he mixed the two and broadcast it; then everybody said, ‘Where can I buy that?’