International Song Festival Zeist 2026

BACK TO NATURE

For ten years in green Zeist, listen to the richness that songs have to offer us. Songs that so often sing of that same greenery and touch us with their stories. Next year, therefore, nature itself will be our protagonist. Because we live in nature and its nature. And what better way for song to do this than to propound to us each time that one question: how do we relate to ourselves and our origins? For the 2026 festival, we therefore chose the theme Back to nature.A quick glance at the news tells us about heat records, fallen climate agreements, wildfires and rising sea levels. At the same time, we are tempted by advertisements inviting us to go out and indulge in nature holidays in forests, on beaches and in the mountains. After all, we are looking for the relief that makes us forget, even if only for a moment, our hectic lives. It marks our complicated relationship with nature and the environment. To the world we live in and are part of. 'Umwelt' is aptly called that in German. It encompasses everything that surrounds us: nature and ourselves.Back to nature is also the title of a poem by Rutger Kopland. In Nunspeet, the first stanza can be read as a wall poem close to the railway station:There was a man, I won't say whohe was, who loved nature,At least he thought so, because he hadHeard there was so much to find there,the silence, freedom, joy and yourselfand so on. Enough in any case to get thereonce to go. *The next line of the poem reads, "And when he finished his sandwiches? In the stanzas after that, the poet questions our attitude towards nature. Is nature just a place 'where there is so much to find' that we should go there sometime? Do we then find silence, freedom and joy and ourselves? Or do we also bear responsibility for it and influence it?FRIDAY 15 TO SATURDAY 23 MAY 2026: INTERNATIONAL SONG FESTIVAL ZEISTFrom Friday 15 to Sunday 24 May, we will explore our relationship with nature and how our human nature sees it. Because nature is not a 'recreational park' where we can stay for entertainment and relaxation. We are part of it and can 'make' and break it. Nature is also the inspiration for countless beautiful songs from the past to the present that hold up a mirror to us. For when he finished his sandwiches, the man in the poem heard the rain, smelt the grass under his feet, the laughter of people and "the voice of mother / owl crying in the elms and calling / for him.Join us and listen to the voice of nature!* from: Rutger Kopland. Poems. Amsterdam, Van Oorschot, 1999