On a cold and drizzly afternoon, on Sunday the 21st of January 2024, a few dozen people gathered for a concert at The Blue Building (Het Blauwe Pand) in Zaandam, a creative venue with ateliers and all sorts of activities for the neighborhood. The concert was organized by bassoon and saxophone player JanWillem van der Ham around a composition by…

In the early 1990s, I began studying music recording at the Royal Conservatoire of Music in The Hague. The program trained students to musically and technically create a beautiful music recording. The conservatory was ideal for that because, in addition to all the instrumental or vocal music content subjects, it also had teachers and facilities (a…

Wat voor een soort componist was Theo Verbey? ‘Hij voelde zich verbonden met muziek uit het verleden en van het heden. Hij zag zichzelf niet als een componist voor alleen maar de club van moderne muziekliefhebbers. Hij wilde dat zijn muziek werd gehoord door een algemeen publiek.’ In zijn muziek zat altijd wel iets van een melodie. Zijn methode…

We appreciate your finding the time to answer a few questions for our readers. The Chekhov Trio is international, with one player from the United States, one from Belgium and one from the Netherlands. That makes inspiring to see how you support and promote the work of Dutch composers like Hans Kox and Henriette Bosmans.  How did you first…

"The trios of Chausson and Bosmans will be joined during this concert by the Piano Trio (1999) by Theo Verbey. 'I consider making choices about what you want to do— and on what basis—one of the biggest challenges in composition.' That is what the composer wrote when discussing his process of composing his piano trio. He adapted his material using…

- What inspired you to record Ebenbild? And how have audiences been responding to your concerts? The core idea of EBENBILD is to develop a classical music album as a continuous story: We use a Renaissance love poem as our thread, on which a musical narrative unfolds using repertoire from the early 17th century to the present day, with Theo…

Recording Producer and Sound Engineer Daan van Aalst remembers Theo Verbey: I began my studies at the conservatory in 1998, with a course in The Art of Sound, a field that I hadn't spent much time with before then. I had grown up in a musical family, and my brother and sister were already at the conservatory. Still, I could not envision myself as…

With its distinctive combination of flute, harp, and strings, the sound palette of Sestetto, which Theo Verbey wrote in 1998, seems decidedly French. However, the composer was undoubtedly aware of that fact, and he made an effort in the course of the work’s four movements to counterbalance this aura…

Theo Verbey’s composition, Inversie (Dutch for 'Inversion'), places two groups of instruments in contrast with each other. The division reflects the double character of the material, which is tonal on the one hand and atonal on the other. The inversion of the title – turning upside down and inside out – is played out between the two…

The Theo Verbey Foundation launched its new website at the beginning of this week. Reason enough for Sinfonietta to delve into its archives in search of recordings and scores of the works that this prominent Dutch composer wrote for Amsterdam Sinfonietta. We look back, along with cellist Maarten Mostert and former artistic coordinator and…