Dutch jazz group plans hundred Sixtieth Anniversary concerts in Canada

Friendship Tour by bus

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick - The Dutch Luke Purwanto & the Helsdingen Trio will be taking their unique repertoire to ten Canadian provinces and three territories this summer. Their 100 not-for-profit concerts will be a tribute to the Canadian Veterans and is presented by the Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa. The tour starts on May 1 and ends on September 30. The Trans-Canada Tulips 2005 tour will be made with a special, multifunctional bus that also serves as a mobile stage. The four-member band earlier used the ‘stage bus’ in tours through Europe, Indonesia and the U.S. The group consists of Luluk Purwanto, a violinist and vocalist from Indonesia, her husband, Dutch pianist Rene van Helsdingen, bass player Essiet Okon Essiet from New York and Italian drummer Marcello Pellitteri, who lectures music at a Boston university.

At their performances in town squares, at music festivals, universities and cultural heritage sites, the band also will present what is called a ‘Tulip Friendship Garden’ to the mayors of each town and to local veterans, in honour of Canadian soldiers who liberated the Netherlands in 1945.

Among the festivals where the band will perform are the Canada Holland Remembers in Fredericton, and the Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa. For a schedule, check the Windmill Herald’s Community Calendar ‘What, Where, When.