Bio

Jeff Hamburg, born in 1956 in Philadelphia, has been a successful composer based in the Netherlands since 1978. His compositions range from chamber music, vocal, and orchestral to opera and music theater. Performances of his music in recent years include premieres in the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam to BBC recordings to commissions for Australian Orchestras.

He studied acoustics and composition at the University of Illinois (BM), continuing his studies at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague (the Netherlands) with Louis Andriessen. In 1986, he received the Conservatory Prize for his composition studies. He also completed a degree in music education with the French Horn as his major at the Royal Conservatory. He continued his education at the Conservatory of Utrecht following conducting classes with David Porcelijn from 1987 to 1990.

Many CDs of his music are available, including both orchestral works as well as chamber music. Hamburg was awarded the prestigious Visser-Neerlandia Music Prize 2002 for the quality of his oeuvre. Besides giving private composition lessons, Hamburg often gives compositional seminars to young musicians and has also completed a course on music theater at the Amsterdam School of Theater.

In the beginning of 2008 he was elected chaiman of the board of Geneco, the Dutch composer’s guild. He is also a board member of the performing rights organization of the Netherlands, BUMA/STEMRA.

In 2009 Deborah van Dam made a documentary about his trip to the Ukraine in search of his roots which can be viewed here.

His translation of ‘The Apollonian Clockwork—about Stravinsky’ by Elmer Schönberger and Louis Andriessen is published by Oxford University Press.

Hamburg lives in Amsterdam. He plays for the oldest chess club in the Netherlands, VAS.

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