Ensemble La Silva is a close group of professional singers, instrumentalists and dancers who are open for new and adventurous ways of performing. Initiator Nanneke Schaap has a long and inspiring international career as viola da gambist and conductor. She works closely with specialists in the fields of renaissance and baroque dance, and with many internationally renowned soloists, conductors and ensembles. In the period from 1979 until 2008 she lived in Italy, where she still is professor of viola da gamba at the Conservatorium of Milan. This diverse background as a performing artist and teacher allows her to create truly exciting interpretations – full of passion and still grounded in a fundamental understanding of the music and the period from which it comes.

Singers, instrumentalists and dancers from many different backgrounds allow themselves to be surprised by this different approach in a way that is palpable, even to the audience. La Silva means ‘the forest’. In this ensemble quite different elements work together – for instance young children together with experienced soloists, or musicians together with performers of other disciplines (dance, theatre, the visual arts) and various stylistic periods. Through this intense collaboration of disciplines and styles, these diverse elements begin to grow together as trees and shrubs in a forest – to make a fascinating whole.