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About Canto XL

The opening page of Canto Ostinato 2

To what extent can a musical composition be truly universal? What is the difference between individual performances? This album focuses on one particular composition: Canto Ostinato.

Various compositions from the 60s already anticipate some of the characteristics of Canto Ostinato.

At the time, minimalists such as Terry Riley devised works – sometimes no longer than a single page – which could be played using a variety of instruments. Time was often a key factor in these pieces.

Simeon ten Holt wrote Canto Ostinato at the piano between 1976 and 1979. The first public performance of the piece in Bergen, North Holland, elicited both praise and criticism, the work drawing attention for its sweetness and simplicity. Ten Holt’s compositions were written at a time when people were used to an entirely different kind of music; composers after financial support from the ‘Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst’ were better off writing in an atonal style. Nevertheless, Simeon covertly pursued his own path, since the atonal style he had employed thus far was not really working for him.

He used to call his work ‘the tonality after the death of tonality’, and he also said that Canto ‘originated from a nebula’. Eventually the composition became a success; tens of thousands of CD recordings have been sold, and it has long been an iTunes hit. That’s a unicum for a contemporary Dutch composer.

This Canto XL collection includes the version that started it all: the piano solo version.

Eventually Ten Holt adapted this version for multiple keyboard instruments, with Canto Ostinato later gaining widespread popularity after a Holland Festival performance on four grand pianos in 1985 in Amsterdam. As a result, many came to associate Canto Ostinato with a prolonged piece for four pianos, but gradually the words written in small at the top of the piece, ‘for keyboard instruments’, were observed. Neither piano nor the number of instruments is thus predetermined.

Later on, the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht started to play host to many of Ten Holt’s premieres, thereafter becoming an important centre for the promulgation of his music.

Listeners of Canto will undoubtedly notice that no two performances are alike, if only because each location appreciates its own particular tempo. Orchestration, too, affects tempo: an organ (slower and more present) affects a performance in a different way to, for example, marimbas. Even the length of a piece varies per performance: usually it correlates with the number of performers, and in Canto Ostinato’s case this is due the improvisational elements inherent to the piece (i.e. the more performers improvise during play, the longer it takes for everyone’s inspiration to run out). As he grew older, Simeon tended to opt for short versions over long ones.

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What attracts people to Canto Ostinato? It has been called immersive, tranquillising, melancholic, vivacious, romantic and minimalistic. The charm is in the clarity of sounds, best comparable to the piano music of Chopin. The special time signature, with repeating groups of five beats (not exactly repeating; subtle changes may be induced according the performer’s preference), has an almost mesmerising effect on the listener – like ‘going out and coming home’, music is a play of tension and relief that fades because of the elongated repetition of these groups. Using the varying repetition and the difference in orchestration, a listener’s journey through Canto changes with each performance.

Indeed, just as orchestration alters tempo, so too does it affect the timbre, which ranges from long sustained sounds in the synthesizers and organ to the pianos’ and marimbas’ short attacks.

In addition to Canto Ostinato, Simeon ten Holt wrote similar compositions like Soloduiveldans (Solo Devil’s Dance), Horizon, Lemniscaat, Incantatie IV and Méandres. A notable change in these last pieces is Simeon’s changing attitude towards the performer’s freedom in creating variance within music, a freedom that has gradually decreased over time. Two of his most contrasting works regarding this factor are Canto Ostinato, which offers lots of freedom, and Méandres, a later work that offers the performers far less. Freedom in music has to be seen within a certain context – it is something that has to be learned, according to Ten Holt. Bach and Scarlatti also provide some freedom, but a musician must always know the sort of freedom that can be given to a particular piece.

Books on minimalism generally don’t mention the works of Simeon ten Holt, sadly. Indeed, the composer considered his music ‘more’ than minimalism, which is probably true, but sometimes such classification is desirable from a practical perspective. Had he been listed in certain publications, Ten Holt would have possibly gained increased international recognition. It is indubitably a remarkable feat of his to have established and maintained his own unique genre, but at the same time it is a lonely island amid a sea too vast to be noted.

A personal note: our audience comes from an ever-growing scope of nationalities. Just recently, Canto enthusiasts from as far away as Japan came over to The Netherlands just to attend one of our concerts. A particularly compelling story is one concerning a young Australian who, yearning to experience Canto at a live performance, booked a plane ticket. Three weeks after the concert we received a letter from his brother to say that he had taken his life. Obviously there were additional factors involved, but his suicide note disclosed that Canto had unleashed an emotion so intense that it had allowed him to let go of life. This story and more can be seen in the documentary Over Canto (About Canto) (2011) by Ramón Gieling.

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Ten Holt stopped composing in 2000. ‘Wat ik te zeggen had, was gezegd’ (‘All I had to say has been said’), he wrote as a postscript to his memoires (Het woud en de citadel, 2009). In 2013 Canto Ostinato by Wilma de Rek was published. Here she recounts in detail her interviews with Simeon ten Holt and other musicians.

Simeon ten Holt died on 25 November 2012 at the age of 89. He left us various works, including Canto Ostinato, which won the hearts of many. I wish you all the enjoyment when listening to the many performances on this collection. 훿 Jeroen van Veen, Simeon ten Holt Foundation Translation: Joeri van Veen

Simeon ten Holt Simeon ten Holt was born in Bergen (province of Noord-Holland, The Netherlands) in 1923 and died in 2012. From 1935 he studied piano and theory with Jakob van Domselaer (1890–1960), the musical representative of the movement ‘De Stijl”. He continued his studies in Paris at the École Normale with Honegger and Milhaud.

During the 60s Ten Holt immersed himself in serialism. He tried to grasp what he called ‘the semantics of musical language’ and looked for ways in which he could expand the possibilities of his musical expression. During the 70s, Ten Holt concentrated on tone and timbre and on sonology.

His masterwork Canto Ostinato, in which he returned to a more conventional style of composing, was premiered in 1979 in the Ruïnekerk in Bergen. The work was performed on three pianos and electronic organ. Later on, Ten Holt felt that the best performance option would be four equal-sized grand pianos; the score still bears the subtitle ‘for keyboards’, however.

‘There’s Simeon ten Holt and then there’s all the rest,’ the composer of works such as Canto Ostinato, Horizon and Lemniscaat once said jokingly of his own position in Dutch musical life. Even today, one could say that, in a sense, this is still true. Anyone challenging a select group of contemporary music lovers to a fiery debate need only mention a single composer’s name: that of Simeon ten Holt. In the late 1970s, Ten Holt provoked the wrath of countless musical know-alls by returning to sounds that every ear could understand.

He had the courage to abandon the complex, twelve-tone scores of the post-war era, which he traded in for

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simple triads, shifting rhythmic patterns and repeat signs. Completely independent of American composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass, Ten Holt created a Dutch version of minimal music.

(Paul Janssen)

Now what is so typical about Simeon ten Holt’s music? In what sense does his musical process differ greatly from that of other contemporary composers? In Ten Holt’s music the score is complex, in that it contains a lot of different layers, like a multi-track composition. In classical music the composer typically makes the final decisions about what and how to play; here, instead, the performers are the decision-makers and are therefore part of the recreation of the composition.

During rehearsals, for instance, the ensemble may decide to skip certain decisions or write/compose a way of traversing the music. In doing so, all performers within the ensemble have an equal input as well as equal influence on the musical outcome.

All of the compositions included in this collection were written down in large books. Each composition contains approximately 100 to 200 sections; 95 per cent of all sections may be repeated, the other 5 per cent are so-called ‘bridges’ and only appear once. There is no fixed duration for a piece, but a performance may easily last a couple of hours. The first performance of Lemniscaat, for instance, lasted 30 hours! This extreme flexibility was completely new to modern music, especially since Ten Holt’s works are based on the natural laws of harmony: tension and relaxation. The music has been constructed within the principle of tonality, but since the duration is more or less stretched, it brings a new perspective to the musical experience. All of this in combination with the democratic process of creation has been a major influence on contemporary music.

Instructions from Ten Holt’s first handwritten score The first performance of Canto Ostinato took place on 25 April 1979 in the Ruïnekerk in Bergen (Holland) and was realised using three pianos and an electronic organ. Other keyboard combinations are possible using keyboard instruments, but the performance with four pianos is preferred. Canto stems from a traditional source, is tonal and makes use of functional harmony; it is built according to the laws of cause and effect (tension-release). Although all parts of Canto have their fixed position in its progress and are not interchangeable without violating the melodic

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line, the internal logic and form, beginning and end do not have absolute meaning as boundaries of structure. Time plays an important role in Canto. Although most bars or sections feature repeat signs and although the performer(s) decide(s) on the number of repeats, one cannot speak of ‘repetition’, as such. Repetition in this case has as its goal to create a situation in which the musical object affirms its independence and can search for its most favoured position with respect to the light thrown on it, becoming transparent. Time becomes the space in which the musical object floats. The performers have a wide margin of contribution: they decide about dynamic contrast, duration (in detail as well as for the whole), about the use of opposing or non-opposing differentiation of timbres, and whether or not to play passages in unison. Also about repetition and combination of bars and sections, depending on their place within the score. The performers also decide, depending on available time and physical effort, on whether they will take turns or if there will be a pause. At the first performance, which lasted about two hours, a pause was held at number 88 in the score, a pause in which a pre-recorded tape was played of the first sections (A, B and C) following number 88. The concert was resumed after 25 minutes (tape fade-out). A performance of Canto is more like a ritual than a concert. The piece is not in a hurry and has in common with so-called minimal music the idea that one cannot speak of fixed duration. As stated, the first performance lasted two hours, but it could have easily been more or less. The main part of Canto is indicated by the bracketed systems in bolder type. For the right hand there are two systems on which alternatives (variants) have been notated. Likewise there is one alternative stave for the left hand. Supposing that the piece is performed by just one musician (e.g. a pianist), he is able to diverge from the basic part via the given alternatives in order to create variety. Apart from these alternatives, each bar or section of the basic part itself contains the possibility for variation: by displacement of accents and dynamic contrasts. Some suggestions for these are given in the score by thinly drawn stems connecting notes within each group. A new episode begins at figure 88 in the score, a sort of interlude. Bars and sections are indicated now by letters (A, B, C etc. to I). This episode and the transposed section from figure 91 consists of a number of sections which are more or less small commentaries on the basic structure A. Through its constant return, A forms a pivot or rest point. The ordering of A and its satellite sections as given in the score is, in a certain sense, relative. The symbol indicates that in many cases one can either go back or forward in one’s choice of sections and that, depending on the harmonies, certain sections can be combined. The variants notated as footnotes from figure 88 (for the left hand) function as a sort of ‘wandering part’. They

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do not have to be present all the time – they can disappear and return – and they need not be filed to the notated octave register.

Bergen, June 1979 Instructions The scheme of repeats, as a structural element of the piece, allows the player(s) to make their own choices regarding: a) the number of times the relevant sections will be repeated (the sections specified as a bridge are to be played just once) b) the intensities (forte, piano etc.) c) the manner of playing (legato, staccato, portato etc.)

The piece develops within the frame of choices offered in these three points, and it is worth remembering that the players are by no means allowed to act as composers and play notes not found in the score. Octave transpositions in the wandering parts are to be applied with caution and restraint. Playing octaves, in the right as well as the left hand, is categorically prohibited. The players should remember that (as a starting point) the right hand of the main part and the (shifted) right hand of the part above should be played continuously and consequently in ‘narrow spacing’.

The players should keep in mind that there is no conductor waving a baton over Canto Ostinato and that it is the inner strength of the players themselves that should perform this task. The control, even when looked after by one of the players, lies in the sum of interactions. After some time has elapsed, the different intensities alternate with a noticeable transition, from forte to piano and the other way around (terraced dynamics), and this happens collectively, which means that all players switch at the same time. This may coincide with a change in the manner of playing – from legato to staccato, for example, and vice versa – and all players perform this at the same time as well. The composer has always insisted that the transitions in intensity and manner of playing be carried out with a maximum of control and distinction.

Notes on the versions CD7: organ Canto Ostinato literally translates as ‘continual song’; it is a composition about time, space and everlasting movement. Simeon ten Holt composed the work in the years 1976–79, and over time it has become The Netherlands’ best-known piano composition. On the one hand the style of the piece is traditional, as regards the use of chords and the application of the theory of harmony; on the other hand the work is renovating, because the idea of time is leading a life of its own – it becomes enormously dynamical and ultimately determines form and content. In this sense there is a great similarity between the composition and what we define as ‘minimal music’, in which repetition seems to be everlasting. The composer himself said about Canto Ostinato: ‘Time becomes space in which the musical object is going to float.’

With regard to the instrumentation of the piece, Simeon ten Holt writes that other combinations of keyboard instruments are conceivable, but that a performance on four pianos is preferable – it is in this version that the work has become famous and has been recorded more than once. However, the score of Canto Ostinato is subtitled ‘for keyboard instruments’, and this gave me the idea to play and record the piece on a church organ; on the one hand because of my fascination for minimal music on the organ and for improvisation; on the other due to the spatial effect of the instrument. Indeed, in my opinion this style of minimal music lends itself pre-eminently to performance on a church organ. The most beautiful (historic) organs are mostly to be found in likewise beautiful churches – places of spirituality – through the ages, and the delicate process of attack and release of the various organ pipes increases this spiritual atmosphere, for the organ is a wind instrument. The organist can influence and vary the way of blowing the organ pipes with his touch, in the same way as the player of a wind instrument can. I again quote the composer: ‘The piece is not in a hurry and has in common with so-called minimal music the idea that one cannot speak of fixed duration […] A performance of Canto is more like a ritual than a concert.’ Therefore this version of Canto Ostinato for church organ: one composer, one composition, one song, for one hour long, but it might just as well be shorter or longer. These days for many people time is structure – restriction, even – but actually time does not exist. Canto Ostinato means ‘continual song’, but it could be called ‘ritual’, ‘mantra’, ‘tranquilliser’ or – perhaps best of all – ‘freedom’. 훿 Aart Bergwerff Translation: Wim Konijn

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CD8: two pianos and two marimbas (live recording during Lek Art 1999) On this CD we skipped sections 88–89 of the score. The composition therefore lasts one hour instead of the usual approximate two hours. The fine combination of pianos with marimbas works very well; the sustaining tone of the piano is rather short in comparison with the marimba, which has a longer sustainability, but this technical matter is only one aspect because the most important addition is of course the beautiful colouring. The palette of colour is indeed richer and more varied compared with the ‘piano only’ versions.

We recorded this version of Canto Ostinato in the Barbara Church of Culemborg. In this church, every night at 9.55pm, the oatmeal-porridge bells ring to draw the everyone’s attention to bedtime.

These church bells date from the 14th century and cannot be turned off, meaning that they can be heard half way through the recording! However, we found that this resulted in a wonderful and beautiful mix of sounds.

CD9: multitrack marimbas For this recording Peter Elbertse played all the layers one by one using multitrack recording equipment. Starting with the bass line, he added a layer each time to realise the score. Producer Jeroen van Veen was present to guide and assist this remarkable percussionist.

CD10: two prepared pianos This recording was partially used in the ballet Bullet Proof Mamma by Itzik Galili, as performed in Amsterdam’s Stadschouwburg on 9 December 2012 by Dansgroup Amsterdam.

CD11–12: synthesizers When Simeon ten Holt composed Canto Ostinato he was also working on electronic compositions, and he used one of the first synthesizers at Sonology in Utrecht. If one listens to his Aforisme I–VI, dating from 1972–74, it is easy to detect his great interest in the behaviour of sound, various delays and sound manipulation. I used these parameters as a source of inspiration when creating this new version for two keyboards utilising the onboard samples and various sounds controlled via MIDI; with Ten Holt’s knowledge, his music from 1976 and instruments from today all mixed together, the result was a new and inspiring long version for two keyboards. 훿 Jeroen van Veen

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Aart Bergwerff Aart Bergwerff initially studied organ, choir direction and church music at the Rotterdam Conservatory. He continued his studies abroad – in North Germany, Italy and Paris – under the guidance of, among others, Harald Vogel and Marie-Claire Alain. His organ education culminated in Paris by his winning the Prix de Virtuosité. At the Royal Conservatory in The Hague he studied improvisation with Bert Matter, also achieving the ‘Aantekening’ for organ improvisation. Bergwerff won prizes at the international organ competitions in Bruges (1985), Lausanne (1987) and Groningen (1989). In 2003 he was awarded the Silver Medal of Merit of the Société Académique ‘Arts, Sciences et Lettres’ for his contribution to French organ culture.

At the Rotterdam Conservatory (part of Codarts, University of Professional Arts Education), he has been a Senior Lecturer in Organ since 1994, also lecturing in Improvisation and Organ Building at the institution. Since 1993 he has been a consultant on the restoration and building of new organs, a role which has led to his involvement in the restoration of many important historic organs in The Netherlands, such as the 1859 Romantic Kam organ in the Grote Kerk of Dordrecht, the 1839 Bätz organ in the Nieuwe (Royal) Church of Delft, the 1781 Hinsz organ in the Martinikerk of Bolsward, and the 1922 Standaart organ in the City Hall of Rotterdam. As a concert organist he frequently performs at concerts and festivals at home and abroad. At the age of 29 he was appointed organist at the Lutheran Church in The Hague, thus becoming the permanent player of one of the most historic organs in The Netherlands: the Johann Heinrich Hartmann Bätz organ, built in 1762. With its great manoeuvrability, this instrument has had a large influence on Aart Bergwerff’s musical thinking, for the organ is the synthesizer avant-la-lettre; Bergwerff has since become involved in coordinating adventurous projects that make use of this instrument, from Canto Ostinato on organ to productions with video artist Jaap Drupsteen. All of these are released on his own label, Art Unorganized. In 2012 Bergwerff was appointed organist at the Grote Kerk in Breda, which houses a four-manual Flentrop organ. www.aartbergwerff.org

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Marcel Bergmann For the last 20 years, Marcel has enjoyed an active musical career as a performer, composer, improviser and teacher. His broad range of interests and experiences in both classical and popular music has led to an output comprising a variety of styles and genres. A native of Munich, Germany, Marcel studied musicology at the Ludwig-MaximiliamsUniversität in Munich and piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover with Arie Vardi. After obtaining a Bachelors degree, Masters degree and Artist Diploma, he received a scholarship from the Université de Montréal, where he and his wife pursued specialised studies in duo piano with Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt. Bergmann subsequently completed postgraduate work in the Solistenklasse in Hannover.

Over the past decade, Marcel has been involved as a composer and musical director in a variety of theatre, cabaret and multimedia projects, such as Baden Rebelliert (Bruchsal, Germany, 1998, including 30 performances throughout Baden-Württemberg), Online an der Leine, which had its premiere during the EXPO 2000 in Hannover/Germany, and Der Avatar (2001). The Bavarian Television, Arte and other European broadcasting corporations have broadcast his music for television features. In 2004, he was a composer-in-residence for Calgary Opera’s Let’s Create an Opera programme. For more than a decade he and his wife Elizabeth have performed extensively as a duo piano team, and have since enjoyed a successful career. They received first prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in Caltanissetta, Italy, were laureates of The Fourth Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition, and were performing artists in Yehudi Menuhin’s organisation Live Music Now. Their recitals and concerts with orchestra have taken them to many parts of the world, including the United States, Italy, Germany, Holland, Greece and Canada, with performances at the celebrated Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, the Banff Arts Festival, the Royal Bank Calgary International Organ Festival and Competition, the

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International Two Piano Symposium and Schubertiade (Miami), Tage für neue Musik (Darmstadt), Braunschweiger Kammermusik Podium and EXPO 2000 (Hannover). They have recorded for the CBC, for several stations of the ARD in Germany and for National Public Radio in the USA, and have also made several CDs that have been released on the Arktos and Naxos labels. Their collaboration as a piano duo has inspired numerous compositions and arrangements for two pianos and piano duet, many of which can be heard on their various recordings.

Marcel’s works are featured on a recent Brilliant Classics release, Minimal Piano Music X–XX. In December 2005 his Urban Pulse for two pianos was premiered as the commissioned work for The Tenth Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition (past commissioned composers included Morton Gould, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom and John Corigliano). His music appears on the Canadian National Conservatory’s series Making Tracks – An Expedition in Canadian Piano Music. He has been commissioned by various organisations, including the CBC, Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, Spiritus Chamber Choir, Langley Community Music School and San Francisco International Music Festival. Furthermore, Marcel has created several works and arrangements involving two pianos and other instruments, such as Culemborg City Soundscape (together with Jeroen Van Veen). Frequent collaborations with composers, performers and writers in Europe and North America have led to a multitude of chamber-music based projects, ranging from duo to sextet. His most recent large-scale work, Two Bit Oper-Eh-Shun (an oratorio on homelessness), was premiered at the 2010 High Performance Rodeo in Calgary and was presented as part of the New York Music Theatre Festival in July 2012.

In addition to frequent appearances as a duo pianist and chamber musician, Marcel performed as a core musician of the Calgary-based group Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, recipient of both the 2005 and 2006 Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Classical Recording. Marcel is also internationally active as a clinician, juror and lecturer, and has worked as a collaborative pianist and vocal coach. In 2004/2005 he and his wife served as Artistic Directors of The Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition and Foundation in Miami. He has been on the faculty at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary, and served as Artistic Director of the Langley Community Music School. He has also been involved in various musical activities at The Banff Centre for the Arts in recent years. Marcel is currently Professor of Music at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. He is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre. www.marcelbergmann.com

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Peter Elbertse Peter Elbertse studied percussion at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam, and is currently principal timpanist of both the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dutch Chamber Orchestra. Passionate about everything connected with rhythm and percussion, he is always exploring possibilities for new musical trends.

Peter ran a percussion festival for years, and as an advisor was closely associated with the Lek Art Foundation in Culemborg. He organises or participates in the following projects (in which percussion often plays an important part): NedPho Jazz Quartet (piano, vibraphone, drums and bass line-up); duos with Jeroen van Veen, including Chick Corea’s music (piano and vibraphone) and piano and hang (lounge music and modern beats); Canto Ostinato (for multitrack marimbas as well as two pianos and two marimbas); and Carmina Burana (which he has conducted several times). Peter’s percussion instrument and sound inventions led to the creation of a CD with Jeroen van Veen, in which they perform their own compositions for piano and hang (Van Veen Productions, PP2023). www.peterelbertse.com Esther Doornink Esther Doornink (born in Gouda, 1976) began her percussion studies in 1994 at the Rotterdam Conservatory with Robert van Sice. She continued and concluded her education at the Utrecht School of the Arts (1996–2001) with Hans Zonderop, Werner Otten and Nick Woud, during which period she performed as a substitute principal with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Holland, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. A former member of the European Union Youth Orchestra, she has participated in masterclasses in both France and the USA.

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Fred Oldenburg Fred Oldenburg (b.1955) began playing the piano at the age of five. He studied at the Royal Conservatory at The Hague with Theo Bruins, thereafter continuing his musical education at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Beveridge Webster and in Brussels with Eduardo del Pueyo. In 1980 he received the ‘Prix d’Excellence’.

Oldenburg performs as a soloist, chamber musician and as an accompanist. He has given concerts as well as radio and TV broadcasts in different countries around the world, and has also made many CD recordings – among them the 12 Etudes d’exécution transcendante

by Liszt. Oldenburg has been involved in performing Ten Holt’s works since their premieres.

Irene Russo Praised by the legendary Martha Argerich as ‘one of the best young musicians I ever heard in my life’, Italian pianist Irene Russo (b.1974) is one of the most interesting talents of her generation to appear on the big international stages.

Her international career started in 1993 in Sydney.

Since then she has played extensively throughout all of Europe, the United States, Latin America, Canada and Israel. She has performed in many important concert venues, including Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bologna’s Teatro Comunale, New York’s Steinway Hall, Naples’ Teatro San Carlo, Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon and Milan’s Auditorium Verdi, as well as in cities such as Houston, Amsterdam, Calgary, Berlin,

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Lisbon, Cleveland, Zurich, Tel Aviv, Freiburg and Antwerp. Recently Russo was invited to play at the Schloss-Elmau, Robert Schumann and Beethoven piano festivals. Her most recent engagements include highly acclaimed debuts at La Roque d’Anthéron International Piano Festival and Munich’s Gasteig.

In recent seasons Russo has appeared as a guest soloist with leading orchestras, including the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Orchestra Sinfonica del Teatro San Carlo, deFilharmonie van Vlaanderen, Münchener Kammerorchester, Craiova Symphony Orchestra, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Houston OrchestraX and Klassische Philharmonie. She has collaborated with leading conductors such as Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, David Stern, Alexander Liebreich, Marc Andreae, Mischa Damev, Heribert Beissel, John Axelrod, Susanna Mälkki, Ovidiu Balan and Michel Tilkin. In 2000 Russo impressed a prestigious jury that included Joachim Kaiser (‘Irene Russo reminds me of the young Kempff’) as well as some of the world’s most famous pianists (Nelson Freire, Maria Tipo and Martha Argerich), taking first prize at the Clara Schumann International Piano Competition in Düsseldorf. Since then she has been invited to appear in Germany’s most prestigious concert halls, including Bonn’s Beethovenhalle, Bremen’s die Glocke, Nuremberg’s Meistersingerhalle, Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle, Hannover’s Theater am Aegi, Hamburg’s Musikhalle, and Munich’s Herkulessaal and Prinzregententheater, both as soloist and with orchestra.

A prizewinner at the 2002 ARD International Piano Competition in Munich, where she received the Special Prize for Best Interpretation of Contemporary Music, and winner of the first prize at the 1999 Emmanuel Durlet International Piano Competition in Antwerp, Irene Russo was also awarded the Special Mention of Honour at the 2003 Martha Argerich International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires. She has recorded live on the Italian television network RAI, Belgian radio station Klara, CBC Canada, Radio Vaticana, Bayerische Rundfunk, ARD, NDR, SWR and Holland’s Radio 4; she also appeared in a music documentary on ZDF. In 2002 Russo was appointed professor at the ‘Umberto Giordano’ National Music Conservatory in Italy. She is regularly invited to take part in the jury of international piano competitions, also giving masterclasses throughout Europe. She has recorded for Oehms Classics and BOA Video. Her teachers include the late Lazar Berman (‘Irene Russo is one of the best students I’ve ever had’) at the International Piano Academy ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola, and Alicia de Larrocha (‘She is absolutely fabulous!’) in Barcelona. www.irenerusso.com

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Sandra van Veen Sandra van Veen studied with the Norwegian pianist Håkon Austbø at the Conservatory in Utrecht, graduating in 1992.

She made her professional debut with her husband Jeroen in a performance of Canto Ostinato during Lek Art (Culemborg).

The concert was recorded live, with the CD selling in more than 40 countries worldwide. Many more CDs and concert engagements followed after this success.

Sandra has built much of her career in performing the music of Ten Holt, but she also plays other kinds of repertoire, ranging from classical works like Carmina Burana, The Planets and Rhapsody in Blue to tangos and Tubular Bells (Mike Oldfield) for four pianos. She has premiered several pieces by Dutch composers such as J. Andriessen (in Russia) and Ten Holt (in Canada), and has performed as far afield as Miami and Novosibirsk (Russia). She takes part in many projects in Holland as well as abroad, and has also recorded many CDs for various labels, with several of her concerts and projects have been broadcasted on radio, television and the internet. A highly respected teacher, she is a co-founder of the Lek Art Foundation and the Simeon ten Holt Foundation. She runs her own company ‘De Walnoot’, which is based in Culemborg, The Netherlands. www.pianoduo.org Jeroen van Veen ‘Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen van Veen, the leading exponent of minimalism in Holland today.’

Alan Swanson (Fanfare) Jeroen van Veen, born in 1969, started playing the piano at the age of seven, later studying at the Utrecht Conservatory with Alwin Bär and Håkon Austbö, and passing the Performing Artists’ Exam in 1993. Van Veen has played with orchestras conducted by Howard Williams (Adams), Peter Eötvös (Zimmermann) in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Vienna and Budapest,

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and in the United States with Neal Stulberg (Mozart & Bartók) and Robert Craft (Stravinsky). He has given recitals in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia and the USA. Van Veen has attended masterclasses with Claude Helffer, Hans-Peter and Volker Stenzl, and Roberto Szidon. He has been invited to several festivals – Reder Piano Festival (1988), Festival der Kunsten in Bad Gleichenberg (1992), Wien Modern (1993), Holland Dance Festival (1998), Lek Art Festival (1996–2007) – and has recorded for major television and radio companies in Holland, Florida and Moscow. In 1992 van Veen recorded his first CD with his brother Maarten as the internationally recognised piano duo ‘Van Veen’. In 1995 the duo made their debut in the United States and were prizewinners in the prestigious Fourth International Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami, Florida. After this achievement they toured the United States and Canada many times. The duo were the subject of the documentary Two Pianos One Passion, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1996.

The various compositions by van Veen may be described as ‘minimal music’ with different faces: crossovers to jazz, blues, soundscape, avant-garde, techno, trance and pop music. Van Veen is director of Van Veen Productions, and is chairman of the Simeon ten Holt Foundation and the Pianomania Foundation as well as artistic director of several music festivals in Culemborg, Utrecht and Veldhoven. He is also active in the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition, based in Miami.

Over the last 20 years van Veen has recorded more than 80 CDs and 5 DVDs for several labels (Mirasound, Koch, Naxos, Brilliant Classics), inluding his own, PIANO; the recording of Les noces for Naxos was described by the New York Times as ‘the best recording ever’. In 2010 he trademarked his successful ‘ligconcert’ piano series. www.jeroenvanveen.com · www.vanveenproductions.com Recordings: 1999–2013 Photo of Aart Bergwerff: 훿 Mikhail Vaneev Photos of Sandra & Jeroen van Veen: 훿 Janey van Ierland Photo of Peter Elbertse: 훿 Ben Breuseker Cover image: 훿 Alexroz, www.dreamstime.com/alexroz_info Works published by 훿 Donemus, Den Haag Visit www.canto-ostinato.com for more information  & 훿 2014 Brilliant Classics

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More Jeroen van Veen on Brilliant Classics

Philip Glass: Solo Piano Music 9419 3CD

Simeon ten Holt: Solo Piano Music 9434 5CD

Arvo Pärt: Complete Piano Music 94775 2CD

Ludovico Einaudi: Waves – The Piano Collection 9452 7CD

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