WELCOME!

Dweilorkest 'De Eierjongens'; an introduction

Welcome to the website of dweilorkest De Eierjongens from Winterswijk! This orchestra from the East of The Netherlands exists of 19 enthusiastic musicians who play songs of very different styles in a very enthusiastic way. We pay a lot of attention to the musical quality during our performances. This quality combined with our extraordinary uniform makes every performance to a big success for you, and us!

The other pages of our website are in Dutch, but below you can find a selection of information that was translated to English. You can see what information can be found where on the site, we explained what a 'dweilorkest' is, and we translated the most interesting parts of our biography.

What can I find on this website?

As said, some information about De Eierjongens can be found below in English. The other pages of our website are in Dutch, but they provide the following information:

'Nieuws': news from De Eierjongens, announcements of coming performances, introductions of new members, etcetera.
'Leden': personal information about the members of the different sections within De Eierjongens.
'Optredens': here you can find our agenda; with information about the places and dates of our performances. You can also find photos and a short story of recent performances here.
'Repertoire': the songs that we play can be found in this list. In the archive you can also find the songs that we played in the past. This page also contains some mp3-files.
'Biografie': our biography, in Dutch, but an English summary can be found below.
'Shop': order Eierjongens products, like our CD, t-shirts and caps.
'Gastenboek': guestbook, write down reactions, comments or other things you want us to know. Do not hesitate, we do understand messages in English! ;-)
'Contact': The information you need to contact De Eierjongens.
'Links': links to websites of sponsors, other orchestras etc.

Dweilorkest?!? What's that?

The name 'dweilorkest' (in English something like 'street-orchestra') has its origin in the world of speed skating. In The Netherlands small orchestras entertain the audience during the breaks of speeds skating championships (the ice is polished then, this polishing is called 'dweilen' in Dutch).

In The Netherlands there are thousands of these orchestras, playing popular music in an enthusiastic way. Dweilorkest De Eierjongens belongs to the best, we get lots of positive reactions and we won some famous festivals. We distinguish ourselves from other orchestras because we pay a lot of attention to the quality of the music we play.

Biography

Because of an eightieth birthday party in 1991 three persons had the idea to make some music at the party. This was a success, and the three persons decided to start up a dweilorkest. In 1993 dweilorkest De Eierjongens was founded. This name stands for 'new life' (Ei means 'egg' in Dutch), because a new orchestra was 'born' in Winterswijk.

The three founders (only one of them; Gottfried, is still a member) started searching for new members to join them. At this moment De Eierjongens exists of 19 musicians. We perform at different occasions, like weddings, parties, markets and sports tournaments. Lots of people know De Eierjongens already, and this number is still increasing. Therefore we are able to perform more than 40 times per year!

We are well-known because of the musical quality, but also because of the uniforms we wear. These uniforms are based on the absract art of the world-famous painter Mondriaan. Piet Mondriaan lived in Winterswijk for the largest part of his youth.

Some of the successes of De Eierjongens between the foundation in 1993 and this moment are:

Participation in festivals; De Eierjongens won prizes in several festivals. We won the famous festival in Groenlo twice, and at festival in Austerlitz and Heerenveen we also won the first prize.
Sports tournaments; De Eierjongens performed during some matches of the European Volleyball Championships several years ago. We also performed during the World Cup speed skating in Thialf in Heerenveen (the famous Dutch speed skating stadium)!
CD; in the year 2002 De Eierjongens recorded and presented their first CD, titled 'Eierjongens, What a Feeling'. We sold almost all of the 1000 CD's we made, so buy one in our shop as long as it is still possible!
Record largest dweilorkest; on April 6 2002 De Eierjongens organised the largest dweilorkest in the world, on the central square in Winterswijk; more than 200 musicians participated.
Concert with fanfare Crescendo Ratum; in 2004 De Eierjongens were the first dweilorkest to do a concert in a theater in cooperation with a fanfare-orchestra.