Catching up 1

With the help of my excellent webmaster Merijn Dijkstra I just added a new page (MEDIA) to my site so that visitors who just want to watch and/or listen to my music can now more easily do so. When you want to listen to a specific work you will find more links in the corresponding…

Over the years I have of course met quite some colleague saxophonists, but I think the most humorous and simultaneously intelligent colleague/friend is french saxophonist/composer/arranger Philippe Geiss. Alsatian born and since quite some time professor at Strassbourg Academy of Music he is traveling the world as a composer, teacher and musician.His interests and capacities go…

Op een steenworp van de Houses of Parliament staat de St. John’s Smith Square, een kerk met een roerige geschiedenis. Ze werd gebouwd in 1710, brandde af in 1742, werd herbouwd en toen door de bliksem getroffen in 1815, herrees wederom en bood in het interbellum plaats aan een jongenskoor waar Benjamin Britten in korte…

It is obvious that I have a great love for the Iberian peninsula, its cultures and its languages. I decided to translate that love into a cycle of 25 poems for soprano saxophone and choir in the 5 largest languages of Iberia. I am now halfway this project called ‘The Iberian Treasure’. I started with…

Sort of outburst of creative energy over the last month. Over two weeks ago now I finished ‘Consecuencias’ for alto saxophone (or clarinet in Bb) and string quartet (or string orchestra). A three movement piece, first movement ‘de la ignorancia’ (consequences of ignorance), second ‘del amor’ (for my wife Saskia) and third movement ‘de la…

Last Thursday another piece premiered at a Master Recital. This time by Yu-Ling Chiu at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, one of the best mallet-players I ever heard. She helped me and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble out when two years ago we performed a one and a half hour version of Wagner’s Ring (my arrangement). The…