A positive trend I am seeing in recent years is that more film music composers are coming to the Netherlands to perform their music. One recent example is Alexandre Desplat, who came to my home country for the first time for his own concert. On two successive evenings, he would conduct the Rotterdam Philharmonic, which would play his music. I had already witnessed him conducting at the Krakow Film Music Festival, and I really liked that concert, which made it a no-brainer for me to go to Rotterdam for his first visit.
This concert was all about Desplat performing his own music, which became clear from the moment it started. When Desplat came on stage, he faced the orchestra immediately after a quick greeting to the audience and began conducting the first piece, music from The Tree of Life. I am not that familiar with its music, or with the music from the next piece, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which made it a wonderful listening experience for me. I could see and hear the string section and woodwinds primarily perform the elegant melodies in both pieces. With Desplat himself being a flute player, it was no surprise to see that the orchestra had four flute players, who had to play all kinds of different flutes.
The next piece, “Suite Royale,” was a suite that contained music from The Queen, The King’s Speech and Lost King. In this suite, the music from The King’s Speech stood out to me, because I know that piece pretty well. Afterwards Desplat turned around and laid out the program, without using a microphone, which would continue with another suite, “Wes Anderson’s Suite,” featuring music from Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch. I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel part in that suite, but I was also quite impressed by the tuba solo in The French Dispatch.
The last piece before intermission, The Shape of Water, was a special one. Not only did it feature an accordion player, but Desplat put on a little microphone so that he could whistle the main melody while still conducting the soloist and the orchestra. I had experienced this in Krakow before, and I hope many people in the audience noticed that Desplat was the one doing the whistling, given how unique the experience was.
After the intermission and before he started conducting, Desplat picked up the now present microphone to tell the audience about the entire program, since the entire venue could hear him speak. After this short speech, the program continued with music from Little Women, a delightful piece performed primarily by the orchestra’s string section. Afterwards the entire orchestra had to work with the music from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. What I loved about this piece is that it not only included the iconic themes from the last two Harry Potter movies but also featured music from some action sequences.
The last two pieces of the official program also formed a wonderful pair of contrasts, with the delightful melodies from The Imitation Game first, followed by the action-packed music from Godzilla, with lots of brass and percussion. Desplat treated us to two encores, concluding the concert with music from Birth and from one of my favorite Desplat scores, The Girl with the Pearl Earring.
One of the things I loved about this concert is its simplicity. For this concert, only the entire orchestra was on stage, with Desplat conducting. There was no host, and Desplat isn’t one for many words either. Furthermore, no sound amplification was needed, as De Doelen in Rotterdam is a concert hall well suited to this type of concert. All this combined made this evening all about his music in its purest form, which was a real treat.
Concert information
Where: De Doelen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
When: March 21, 2026
Orchestra: The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Alexandre Desplat
Program
- Alexandre Desplat – The Tree of Life
- Alexandre Desplat – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Alexandre Desplat – “Suite Royale”
- The Queen
- The King’s Speech
- Lost King
- Alexandre Desplat – “Wes Anderson’s Suite”
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The French Dispatch
- Alexandre Desplat – The Shape of Water
Intermission
- Alexandre Desplat – Little Women
- Alexandre Desplat – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game
- Alexandre Desplat – Godzilla
- Alexandre Desplat – Birth (encore)
- Alexandre Desplat – The Girl with the Pearl Earring (encore)
