André Rieu Quotes

• I love reading but I never last very long because I fall asleep right away.

  André Rieu

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• You go to a pop concert or a classical concert but there’s nothing in between.

  André Rieu

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• Where would I be without Johann Strauss’s beautiful ‘Blue Danube?’ Without this piece of music I wouldn’t be the man I am today. It’s a tune that brings out the emotion in everyone and makes them want to waltz.

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• When my twin grandchildren, Linda and Lyeke, were born two years ago, it changed me. I felt it was the essence of what life is about, and I cried all day. When my son Pierre, their father, was born I didn’t cry like that.

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• When I’m not on tour, I love to have a long breakfast at home in my garden.

  André Rieu

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• When I was 4 or 5, I attended my father’s concerts. He very often played Strauss waltzes as encores and I saw something happening with the audience.

  André Rieu

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• We should make decisions in life with our hearts, not our brains, not only in music but in daily life.

  André Rieu

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• The waltz is a very important part of my life. It’s a very important way for me to express my positiveness, bringing humor to the world.

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• The waltz can be sad and at the same time uplifting. You have to see life from both sides, and the waltz encapsulates that. If you’re in my audience you give yourself to me and the waltz will grab you.

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• The classical music world is so snobbish.

  André Rieu

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• People don’t come to my concerts because they know the program. They come because they love the atmosphere and because they know that when I offer them a program it will be a night they never forget.

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• Other people might want a Ferrari, but I wanted a butterfly house. I built it together with a blacksmith. We designed it together.

  André Rieu

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• Now, I’ve changed my life to make sure I work only on what I love.

  André Rieu

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• Mozart composed his music not for the elite, but for everybody.

  André Rieu

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• It is my personality alone that has brought back the waltz and made it a global craze.

  André Rieu

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• It is a real piece of art if you can make a waltz sound like it is the easiest piece of music to play, because it’s really not.

  André Rieu

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• It doesn’t matter as long as there’s interaction between me and the audience. That’s why they come.

  André Rieu

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• I was the black sheep of the family, and my mother never really understood me.

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• I was so busy with my studies that I didn’t have a musical idol as a teenager. Later, around my 20s, I suddenly discovered the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but I guess my musical idol has always been Strauss.

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• I was a fat child and loved cake, perhaps because it was the only sweet thing in my life.

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André Rieu (32)

Birth:	1st October, 1949
Nationality:	Dutch
Profession:	Conductor, Entrepreneur, Violinist

About

André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu is a Dutch violinist and conductor best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra. Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra have turned classical and waltz music into a worldwide concert touring music act, as successful as some of the biggest global pop and rock music acts. From a very young age he developed a fascination with orchestra. He studied violin at the Conservatoire Royal in Liège and at the Conservatorium Maastricht. His teachers included Jo Juda and Herman Krebbers. From 1974 to 1977, he attended the Music Academy in Brussels, studying with André Gertler, finally receiving his degree "Premier Prix" from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.  Rieu formed the Maastricht Salon Orchestra and performed as a violinist with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra. In 1987, he created the Johann Strauss Orchestra and his own production company. Since then, his melodramatic stage performances and rock-star demeanor have for some been associated with a revival of the waltz music category. André Rieu plays a 1667 Stradivarius violin.

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Today's Anniversary - 17th November

Births

• 1944 - Rem Koolhaas
• 1868 - Paul Hirsch
• 1937 - Peter Edward Cook
• 1951 - Stephen Root
• 1977 - Laura Wilkinson

Deaths

• 2003 - Don Gibson
• 1995 - Marguerite Young
• 1983 - Raymond Aron
• 1858 - Robert Owen
• 1990 - Robert Hofstadter