Para Rebecca (for Rebecca)

One of my favourite ‘jobs’ is coaching the parallel ensemble of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble: the YoungNWE (JongNBE). Every year together with my colleague Dick Verhoef I spend a week in October with the Ensemble in the first phase of the NWE’s Young Composers Project. And this is how I met Rebecca Fransen, a great double bass-player (also quite handy on the bass guitar). We had invited her into the group and then I found out she is the daughter of a friend I studied with 30 years ago…
We got along quite well, I had always wanted to write a double bass solo piece and so we decided that for Rebecca’s final concert at Conservatorium van Amsterdam I would write her a piece, depicting the many sides of her musical character: lyrical, virtuoso, cross-over, energetic!
A highly demanding piece is the result. And Rebecca is now a very esteemed colleague, performing with PHION orchestra in the Netherlands as a regular member and as a freelancer in many other orchestras and ensembles.