Back in time with a magnifying glass

In August 2025, our webmaster received a message through the contact page. A certain Leo Strijbosch had contacted us. It turned out he had performed as a soloist at one of our concerts. It turned out to be quite a while ago: April 25, 1971! Strijbosch was 23 years old at the time and a fifth-year mathematics student at Eindhoven University of Technology (THE), later TU/e. The orchestra had existed for less than a year and a half…

That orchestra, then called Helikon, was given the opportunity, under the direction of founder and conductor Jacques Wijnen (who was also Strijbosch's piano teacher in the early 1970s), to perform on the occasion of the THE's 3rd anniversary. Mr. Strijbosch's contribution to the concert was Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15.

It got even more interesting when he said he had found the announcement again:

And, he wrote to me, he had asked the THE technical department to make a recording of the concert. After the concert, he had this recording available, playable on a tape recorder. When that tape fell into disuse, Mr. Strijbosch transferred the recording to a music cassette. Later, he rescued the recording when that medium, too, became obsolete by converting it to MP3:

How the concert was received is revealed in the last archival document he made available: a review!

We still, with gratitude and great pleasure, give an annual concert commissioned by the University. The format has now evolved into a family concert, with the goal of getting young people interested in both music and science.

Our thanks go to Leo Strijbosch for making this journey through time possible by making his archive material available.