Cory Wong & Metropole Orkest

On 16 June 2026 Cory Wong will play with the Metropole Orkest at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. The American guitarist brings his tight, rhythmic funk to a large orchestral format: short riffs, pulsing grooves and fully developed themes gain extra color from brass and strings. Expect new orchestral arrangements of his solo repertoire and nods to his work with Vulfpeck and The Fearless Flyers, with space for interplay and improvisation within precise arrangements.

Cory Wong, a guitarist and composer from Minneapolis, operates at the intersection of jazz, pop and rock. His focus is on rhythm guitar, groove and catchy structures, heard on records such as Cory Wong and the Green Screen Band (2017), The Optimist (2018), Motivational Music for the Syncopated Soul (2019), The Striped Album (2020) and The Lucky One (2023). Live he conducts his band almost like a small orchestra, where precision and a joy of playing combine with short solos and call-and-response.

The Metropole Orkest, since 1945 the Dutch hybrid between a big band and a symphony orchestra, switches effortlessly between jazz, pop, film music and electronics. With regular collaborations with arrangers and conductors like Vince Mendoza and Jules Buckley and projects including Snarky Puppy (Sylva, 2015), it features both a rhythm section and an extensive string section. In Utrecht they will present Wong’s grooves on a widescreen scale, from compact funk hits to transparent passages where every detail can be heard.