In June 2023 I was invited to take part in the Chamber Evolution program of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff (Canada) as a composer. There, in my very own composer hut in between the mountains and the pine-trees, I wrote Four Circumstances for Piano Trio (Piano Trio no. 1), which was then premiered by the Faust Trio and the Waldstein Trio, from France and Cyprus respectively.
Doctor Atomic
For Stichting LustrumOpera’s production of Doctor Atomic (Adams) I created visual stage projections in accordance with director Wim Trompert’s vision.
Photos: Ben van Duin & Marco Borggreve
directed by Wim Trompert
Stage design by Eric Goossens
Costumes by Martijn Kramp
Lifelines
“Lifelines”, my first studio-album, is live now! The album was successfully crowdfunded in 2021 and recorded with 18 musicians in 2022 including a full string orchestra and piano in the legendary Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum, The Netherlands. Now, in 2023, it’s finally ready to go out into the world.
The music on Lifelines portrays my personal view on life, how our own lives and those of others weave around each other, run parallel, tangle, untangle, start and end, just like threads of wool.
The release of the album was celebrated with a concert in my hometown of Utrecht in a beautifully intimate “werfkelder”, a typical cellar along the Utrecht city canals.
Nesko: Naar de natuur
For the Nederlands Studenten Kamerorkest (Dutch Student Chamber Orchestra) I designed the visuals for their 2023 tour, dubbed “Naar de natuur”, into nature, inspired by the 20th century Jugendstil movement. The designs feature variation of abstract flowers and stalks, in a mix of artificial and natural colors.
Birds of Paradise
The Great Gate of Kiev
Transgender Awareness
Together with the brilliant photographer Prins de Vos I created two posters commissioned by Transgender Netwerk Nederland (Dutch Transgender Network) to be spread around Rotterdam in bus stops.
Transgender Awareness Week is a week when transgender people and their allies take action to bring attention to the community by educating the public about who transgender people are, sharing stories and experiences, and advancing advocacy around issues of prejudice, discrimination, and violence that affect the transgender community.
Temperature Music
For the ICOS science conference I wrote “Temperature Music”, a piece that translates the current climate crisis to music to better instill its severity in the listener.
Comissioned in 2019 its performance was delayed due to COVID but it finally found its stage in September of 2022, at the ICOS science conference in TivoliVredenburg Utrecht, The Netherlands. The piece was performed by musicians of the Utrechtsch Studenten Concert and was conducted by Sander Teepen. The piece was received to much enthusiasm both from visitors as the (climate) scientists who were present at large.
The piece goes through the history of climate change until the present day and is accompanied by an animation displaying several milestones in climate science as well as a graph displaying the increase in temperature over time. With every performance a new snippet of music is added according to the new climate data from the time between the last and the newest performance.
The piece is influenced by minimalism as to display the continuity of the climate crisis.
Stroom
Comissioned by “Symfonieorkest Nijmegen”, the symphonic orchestra of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, for their anniversary.
The piece called “Stroom”, or “Stream”, embodies the centuries-old connection between the river Waal and the city of Nijmegen. The piece was commissioned by Symfonieorkest Nijmegen to commemorate their 70-year anniversary. The orchestra is conducted by Frans-Aert Burghgraef. The piece combines natural sounds of the city and nature with sweeping harmonies and unforgiving rhythms, just like how our civilisation has to work together with nature, just like the city of Nijmegen does with the Waal river.
The piece is written for large symphonic orchestra with a duration of 05:30 minutes.
jsConfetti
This is an explorative project to challenge myself in javascript codewriting. The project started when I was designing a poster I wanted to decorate with confetti, but I didn’t feel like drawing hundreds of unique confetti flakes to place them randomly around the poster. So, what does one do? You create a generator that does it for you.
Did I actually save time? Probably not. Did I enjoy creating the generator? Most certainly. That’s a win in my books. And on top of that: I have a fun project to work on on and off. Feel free to look around and suggest improvements.
Play around with the live editor here:
Enjoy playing around with this or just appreciate what I do?