Trio for clarinet, violin and piano: concerts in run up to CD-recording

My beautiful Trio for violin, clarinet and piano will be performed a number of times in the near future ahead of a CD recording in April:

this Sunday 12 February between 10.00 and 11.00 on NPOKlassiek in the radio programme Spiegelzaal from the Concertgebouw;
on Saturday 18 February at the Vondelkerk in Amsterdam in a fine series of Bartók Salon Concerts (ticket sales here);
and finally on 2 April in the Kromme Rijn Concerts (the concert that had to be cancelled last year due to illness – ticket sales here).

A constant factor in these performances is masterpianist Bas Verheijden, who plays in Amsterdam with Emma Roijackers (violin, artistic director) and Stefan Woudenberg (clarinet) and in Bunnik with Nancy Braithwaite (clarinet, artistic director) and Amarins Wierdsma (violin). He will also record the piece with the latter – more on that later.
In both programmes, my piece accompanies Béla Bartók’s famous trio Contrasts. Where the Hungarian Bartók uses folk music from the Balkans, in my piece you will hear historical Dutch folk music (yes, a rarity in new classical music!) – alongside tango, gamelan and much more.

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.