In August 2025 the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands performed Anna Meredith’s unique body percussion work Handsfree as part of their summer tour, visiting including the Concertgebouw, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Kongress Palais in Kassel, and Theater & Congres Orpheus in Apeldoorn.
Meredith developed this unique orchestral work with dancer and choreographer David Ogle, whose movements make the piece a visual as well as musical spectacle. For Handsfree the musicians lay down their instruments and clap, stamp, sing and beatbox their way through the piece. Meredith says the piece is about “about virtuosity, playing rhythmically together and working as a team.”
The 12-minute piece was written for the National Orchestra of Great Britain in 2012, where it debuted at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall with a subsequent appearance at the BBC Proms that year; they represed the work in 2022 at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and the PRSF New Music Biennial at the Southbank Centre. The work has also received performances at the Elbphilharmonie by the NDR Jugendsinfonieorchester and from California-based contemporary dance collective Post:ballet, and featured in a 2014 advert for Prada.