UTRECHT900 - new choral work for the Utrecht Chamber Choir

Utrecht will be celebrating throughout the summer of 2022: in 1122 the city received city rights and this 900-year jubilee is being exuberantly celebrated under the motto Utrecht 900: City without walls. As part of the festivities, the Utrechts Kamerkoor and the City of Utrecht commissioned me to write a choral work. The text was provided by the choir and written by one of the choir members. It is, quite appropriately, about how the city and the rights and duties of its citizenry developed into modern Utrecht society. From Guilds to City Council, from Bishop to Civic Forums – I have made a ballad of this political epic, a Ballad: Rightly Utrecht, for mixed choir SATB. Led by their conductor Bauwien van der Meer, the Utrechts Kamerkoor will sing the piece in a programme featuring Utrecht composers such as Hendrik Andriessen, Jetse Bremer and Monique Krüs.
This is the series of concerts:

Sunday 18 September in the afternoon in Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd (Koningslaan 9, 3981 HD Bunnik);
Saturday 24 September in the morning (11:00) Amerpoort Residence (Prinses Margrietstraat 116, 3554 GJ Utrecht)
Saturday afternoon (5 November), Museum Speelklok (two or three performances) (Steenweg 6, 3511 JP Utrecht)
Sunday 27 November, evening in Theater Kikker (Ganzenmarkt 14, 3512 GD Utrecht).

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.