About the
Fairytale Association
The European FairyTale Association has set the goal of creating children’s productions based on two important core elements: the classical orchestra and fairytales.
Both elements have been linked to our culture and history across European borders for centuries and form the base of our European identity.
With the FairyTale Concerts we not only want to lower the threshold to classical music and show children and their families the way to our concert halls, but at the same time we want to playfully invite and present them culture, history and musical styles from all corners of Europe.
The Orchestra
The musicians of this hand picked orchestra are not only magicians on their instruments, they play together because they all have one thing in common: they are convinced that classical music is essential in the education of young children.
And how could we indulge our young public more than playing their own repertoire: Musical Fairytales.
By performing Musical Fairytales of all European countries we hope across borders to meet each other in a fantastic world full of surprises and get to know our different cultures.
From Sweden to Spain, from the UK to Belarus, every country has his own fairytales, some of them very old, some of them brand new.
Musical Fairytales are a fancy way to get to know better our European fellow citizens and to learn about their culture.
Music is the common language we all understand far beyond the borders of all our different countries.
Our Repertoire
Bringing musical fairytales is not our end goal. The fairytales are used to spike the interest of the youth in the much bigger, too little known world that is classical music.
Thanks to the uncountable quantity of musical fairytales from all over Europe, we can bring a variety of performances with a playful educational undertone but based on cultural and pedagogical elements.
Through these concerts families can easily find their way to the concert hall where children, in many cases, for their first times get in touch with the classical orchestra.
Benjamin Britten
Young Person’s Guide
George Kleinsinger
Tubby the Tuba
Igor Stravinsky
Histoire du Soldat
Robert Groslot
Marquis of Carabas
Björn Hallmann
Snow-White
Camille Saint-Saëns
Carnaval des Animaux
Dirk Boiy
conductor - organizer
In 1986 Dirk Boiy became conductor of the Kempens Symphonic Orchestra with which formation he was responsible for Belgium’s first staging of Howard Blake’s “The Snowman” December 1991.
When Sir Simon Rattle invited him to Birmingham as an orchestral conductor he learned a lot about Rattle’s innovative ideas on how to make classical music approachable to children.
Inspired by Sir Simon’s concept, Dirk proposed to the National Opera of Brussels “La Monnaie” to organize more concerts specifically for children, which has led additionally to the foundation of the “Educational Department” of the Opera House.
From 2001-2006 Dirk was conductor and artistic director of the European Festival Orchestra.
From then on he was co-founder and artistic director of the “Fairytale Concerts – Sprookjesconcerten” aiming to help young people find their way to classical music. Under the auspices of the National Opera he developed a whole series of children concerts and cd-recordings based on musical fairytales.