Instead of a concert in the Concertgebouw or the new Muziekgebouw on the IJ, I wanted to do something that would be a little bit more spectacular. My eyes fell upon Schiphol Airport. What could be more spectacular than having an entire day of performances spread throughout the airport celebrating one hundred years of Dutch…
In the process of composing my new piece ‘Visions of the Cosmos’ Sometimes composing can take you on a far journey. I decided to write ‘Visions of the Cosmos‘, a piece about the history of how man viewed the place of the earth in the universe, starting with Aristotle to Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo and finally…
On the evening of her abdication, it would only seem fitting for a small homage to Queen Beatrix’s appreciation of Dutch classical music. On September 3rd 2011, the Genootschap van Nederlandse Componisten (Dutch Composers’ Guild) celebrated their centennial in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Special guest was Her Majesty Beatrix Queen of the Netherlands. As Chairman of…
Recently, my violin sonata “Soaring” had its premiere in Amsterdam. A video registration of one of the concerts can now be watched on this blog:
Thursday morning, the news reached me that a Dutch colleague of mine had passed away. Even though Otto Ketting was 77 years old, the news saddened me. I knew Otto personally since about 1988, when we were in a project together. He was a funny guy, both in the sense that he had an interesting…
Sunday, January 6th, my new violin sonata will have its premiere in the Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis, performed by Sjaan Oomen, violin and Bas van Bommel, piano. Ever since composing my violin concerto in 2009, I’ve been wanting to write a sonata for violin as well. Writing the concerto reopened my eyes to all the…
I read a comment that a Dutch colleague wrote about a rock band that was popular last century. He was lauding their raw sound as well as their revolution against bourgeois society. Funny enough, the band still performs even though most of them are in their seventies. Another colleague of mine is well-known for confusing…
People listen to music on different levels. When, during a lecture about one of my compositions, I would play a melody on the piano or sing a melody that I was quoting in the piece, and then played the piece itself, I realized that not everybody was hearing the same thing I was hearing. I’ve…
A few years ago, I was elected chairman of the board of the Dutch Composers Union (GeNeCo). I was a bit reluctant to take this position, but one of the reasons I decided to do it was that we would be celebrating our 100th anniversary in 2011. In my first year as chairman, I was…
