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…Two premières:

Wednesday 1 Octobre in London: Over the Water for giutar and string quartet, commissioned by the IGF, in the opening festival of London’s new concert hall Kings Place.
Thursday 23 Octobre in Amsterdam: young and upcoming violin player Lisa Jacobs plays the Dutch première of Due Scherzi for string quintet in the Amsterdam Bethaniënklooster.

Forthcoming:

…a piano trio for the Norwegian-Dutch Atlantic Trio. For the Dutch Trio Amare a small song cycle on Heine’s Bergidylle. For German Edition Tre Fontane a series of (easy) recorder pieces: The Art of Angels.

Vintage Brisk

A 10 by Luister cd Magazine and a four star rating by leading Dutch daily De Volkskrant were awarded to the new cd Vintage Brisk - Contemporary music for recorder quartet by 20 year old Brisk Brisk_Luister10tje featuring my new Catch (an Angel) as well as the 1991 Quartet (part 3).
Released by Globe Records.
More recorder music? Look at SheetMusicPlus.
Also look at Brisk for the cinematic concert BLIK. Brisk: BLIK

…Voices

The new cd Dutch Composers ‘Di Voce’, Vol.II OrpheusCD features my The Lamb & The Tyger for female choir - recently also arranged for mixed chamber choir.

Listen

…to the new Three Dance Capriccios for violin and piano in the beautiful 3D Binaural-logo live recording made by Binaural of their first performance in the Van Gogh vrijdagavonden Van Gogh Museum

Damon and the International School of Philosophy have more to say about the book Welke taal spreekt de muziek? — muziekfilosofische beschouwingen; see also News and Text

Credits & Contacts

To the colophon

Last update: 04-11-2008

For everyone interested in new classical music.

Listen -

…to one of my Three Dance Capriccios, recorded live at the Van Gogh museum Amsterdam by Yuri van Nieuwkerk (piano) and Rosanne Philippens (violin), and have a look at the score.

Is it…

…Art or Science?

Who is he?

Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk is a Dutch composer, born in Amsterdam in 1955 of Indonesian-Dutch parents. Having started as an improvising musician he took to written composition while studying musicology at the University of Utrecht. Although he is a specialist in Modern Classical music, his work starts from the lyricism and formal richness of the Classical-Romantic tradition, while at the same time comprising Pop and Early Music idioms.

Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk 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 recent works for classical chamber music ensembles the extremes of contemporary vernaculars, World Music and Early Music meet. Often taking historical melodies as a starting point, these 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.

There is a more extended bio here.

Download: audiophile mp3’s

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) of my Trio for violin, clarinet and piano.

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.