On the eve of this year’s festival, the Royal Conservatoire presents a special prelude concert with free admittance on the 7th of April in the Ensemble Hall of the Royal Conservatoire in Amare. The programme, labeled ‘The Garden of Ryoan-gi’, offers a retrospective of the nearly complete piano (keyboard) oeuvre of the late composer Louis Andriessen. Besides key works such as Trepidus and Image de Moreau, other relatively unknown works by Andriessen will be performed by piano students of the Royal Conservatoire. A unique addition to the programme is a performance of the staggering composition De Staat for two pianos by Gerard Bouwhuis and Ellen Corver. No official release of this version, created by alumni Gerard Bouwhuis and Cees Zeeland — that has been explicitly approved by the master himself — exists to this date.