The Dutch violinist and conductor André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu born on 1 October 1949 is best known for founding the Johann Strauss Orchestra, which specializes in playing waltzes.
As popular as some of the largest international pop and rock music performers, Rieu and his orchestra have made classical and waltz music into a world-wide concert touring act. He now resides in Maastricht, his hometown.
Rieu was the best-selling musician in the Australian market from 2006 to 2011 and had over $50 million in wholesale sales of his CDs and DVDs by May 2011. By December 2008, Rieu had received his 100th platinum accreditation in Australia.
Rieu’s parents were both Roman Catholic, but his name is of French Huguenot heritage. Rieu now regards himself as an atheist.
He is the third of Andries Antonie Rieu’s six children. Teresa and Cilia are his two older sisters. Robert and Jean-Philippe are his two younger brothers and hs youngest sister is Gaby Buirma-Rieu.
The Maastricht Symphony Orchestra was led by Rieu’s dad. At age five, André started learning the violin after shown early promise.
He became enamored with orchestra at a very young age. Between 1968 and 1973, he studied violin with Jo Juda and Herman Krebbers at the Conservatoire Royal de Liège and the Conservatorium de Maastricht.
In 1975, he wed Marjorie Kochmann, his wife. She has created compositions and taught languages. The couples gave birth to two kids, Marc and Pierre.
Dutch, English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish are among the six languages the legendarry André Rieu can speak.
André Rieu Funeral
As emotional as André Rieu songs are, he been been topping charts for “Best funeral songs” for years, dominating his fellow funeral artistes such as Frans Bauer, Marco Borsato, Jannes, Danny Vera and Claudia de Breij.
He is not dead as at 2022 but his trombonist died in 2016 from heart attack in UK when they went for a tour.
His song dubbed “The rose” remains the 10th most popular funeral song nationally in popular music charts across the internet.
