News – Page 6 – Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk

Orpheus sings: Dutch composers

A new cd of Dutch choral music includes my The Lamb & The Tyger….

First performance of violin-piano duo in the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam

31 maart 2006 – My latest piece, Three Dance Capriccios for violin and piano, has been written especially for young musicians Rosanne Philippens and Yuri van Nieuwkerk at the request of violin pedagogue Coosje Wijzenbeek, with kind support by the Dutch Fund for Creative Music Writing. The first performance, in a concert by Coosjes young Fancy Fiddlers, has been at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam during their exquisite Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition at one of the special ‘Friday Night’ programs offered by the museum. For the occasion, the Fiddlers’ programme consisted of ‘Dutch Masters’, featuring Hendrik Andriessen and Ton de Leeuw, whose beautiful Sonatina is played by Rosanne and Yuri along with my new piece.

Polder Winds Blowing

‘Polder Winds Blowing’ is a small series of small pieces for variable winds. Several music schools tried their hands on them last season. And the Dutch ‘Concertzender’ was there to broadcast some.

Christina Competition Laureates play ‘Kalenda Maya’

May 2004 – For the young Gioconde Quartet (average age: 15) I wrote Kalenda Maya, a compact contemporary divertissement based on historical melodies. They played it, very aptly, on a ‘Spring Concert’ in the beautiful historical town of Blokzijl, that was later broadcast by the Concertzender.

Vintage Brisk: a birthday party

Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam celebrated it’s 20th anniversary with a cd of contemporary music for recorder quartet and a special programme, including my music, in the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw….

About me

Musical beauty and simplicity are my aim. My guiding principle is the classical European tradition. Folk music, church music and Early Music are the sources to which I return to seek new melodic beauty. I value musical craftsmanship and intuition highly. Musicians are my first audience. It is their virtuosic interplay, comic or dramatic, but always emotionally charged, that is the musical theater my music presents to the listener. The sounds I cherish most are those that through the musician’s hearts, breath and hands bear the mark of their personal interpretation.
Chamber music is, therefore, central to me – I have written for the Bennewitz Quartet and Harry-Imre Dijkstra, the Skampa Quartet, Rosanne Philippens, the Bartók Trio, the Utrecht String Quartet and many others.
My chamber music for recorders has a special place in my work and is played in large numbers by amateurs. The CD Kadanza is a fruit of decades of collaboration with the best professionals who were often also the best teachers.
For me, choral music is also a species of chamber music. It should challenge and offer musical satisfaction to those many amateur singers – that I am one of.

My music features individual performers – to convey a thought, an emotion, and a story to the audience in a virtuoso and intense fashion.

In rehearsal and performance, the performers and I learn a lot from each other. Sometimes their improvisations are included in the musical story. Scores will always be adapted to their needs.

The interplay between performer and composer is absolutely essential in newly written music. As is the interplay between sponsor and composer.

Would you like me to rehearse with you or do you want to know more about a piece?

Do you want me to write a piece for a particular line-up or event?

Please let me know and I will contact you.

Besides composing, I lecture in New Music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, with a focus on chamber music and music aesthetics. Some of the writing and thinking that I do there can be found in the ‘text’ section.