For everyone interested in new classical music.

Listen -

…to Catch (an Angel), a fast, short caccia, raising once more the ancient question how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or rather, on the tip of a recorder player’s tongue…
Played by Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam.
Important and unique information about angels, their mytho-biological capacities and how these differ from those of other creatures of the imagination can be found here.

A Third Viennese School?

One wonders what the music will be of a new ‘Wholly German Empire’.

Who is he?

Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk is a Dutch composer of a new classical music that, rich in lyricism and full of rhythmic vitality, makes the 21st century resonate in the musical traditions of the 19th. Recent examples are his piano trio De tout mon coeur, Over the Water for guitar and string quartet and the songcycle Bergidylle.
Born in Amsterdam in 1955 of Indonesian-Dutch parents, he started as an improvising musician and only took to written composition while studying musicology at the University of Utrecht. Although he became a specialist in Modern Classical music, his work is marked by the expressive lyricism and formal richness of the Classical-Romantic tradition, while at the same time comprising Pop and Early Music idioms.

He has a mixed background in classic piano, jazz and percussion, and at first worked with self-styled ensembles that combined popmusic and popmusicians with classical players and classical forms. His strong interest in Early Music resulted in a number of pieces for Early Music ensembles that succesfully apply the sound quality of Early Music to Africa-derived rhythms and a contemporary, highly melodious and polyphonic idiom.

In his new chamber music for traditional chamber music ensembles the extremes of contemporary vernaculars, World Music and Early Music meet. Often having historical melodies as a starting point, sometimes taken from a specifically Dutch background (like the Antwerp Songbook), sometimes from a wider European one (like troubadour song or Protestant church music), these chamber music works combine contemporary rhythms and expression with the polyphony, ensemble playing and lyricism of Classical-romantic forms.

Van Nieuwkerk is a lecturer in 20th century Music History and New Music at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. He is married and has two children, Yuri and Mascha.

There is a more extended bio here.
An overview of my works is here.
Some 14 cd’s with a work of mine on it can be found here.

Download: audiophile mp3’s

• My Trio for violin, clarinet and piano, wonderfully played by the Bartók Trio, recorded using BINAURAL’s superior dummyhead technique in the acoustically remarkable chapel of the Cenakel in Soesterberg: the complete movements 2 (Nocturne – 3,85MB) and 3 (Jeu-parti – 4,46MB).
  The sheet music is here.

About this site

This is a personal site that offers you

… a catalogue
to listen to my music and view sample scores —

… a news section
about first performances, new recordings, upcoming projects —

… a few texts
that I wrote for publication - like my discussion of Adlingtons book on Louis Andriessen (translations will appear gradually this year) —

… some personal texts
that I wrote just for myself.

It is a work in continuous progress — so…

• …I welcome your comments — in the several sections or through the contactpage.

• …I highly appreciate any remarks you might have on editorial matters, navigation, design and readability. While this site was carefully designed according to W3C webstandards and should operate on all browsers we like to hear about any apparent misbehaviour on your browser.

Many people warmheartedly contributed to this site, financially and with their musical friendship. I thank them all, hoping my music may return some of this warmth to them.