A Building with a View

Like a steamer, a skyscraper, no, like a musical refinery it stands beaming squarely on the banks of the former Amsterdam ferry port: the “Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ” that we owe to director Jan Wolff’s unrelenting pressures, political, personal, and not to underestimate, financial. It HAD TO arise – and indeed it arose. Artist Sigrid van Essel lives opposite to it, and she painted the view (of Amsterdam Central Station) one would enjoy if the building would steam off to the not so far removed horizon of North Amsterdam, Skipper Jan firmly steering – please do return, “Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ”! Sigrid’s painting (Amsterdam Central in Winter Sun) is on our wall. Another beautiful version of this view is offered by this painting:

A shrouded image in a splash of light, due to Sigrid’s fine technique. Take a close look at her site!

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 have lectured 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.