The music of Peter-Jan Wagemans is typical of the Rotterdam School, together with that of Otto Ketting and Klaas de Vries. In an interview with Emile Wennekes, Wagemans described the Rotterdam School as “a third stream of composition”: “We distance ourselves from the avant-garde and the minimalism you find in the work of The Hague School, for example by Louis Andriessen. The Rotterdam School is concerned with the fundamental musical parameters: pitch and rhythm. It is a way of writing music that embraces tradition, in which Stravinsky and post-modernism in particular play a role.” (Ons Erfdeel, February 2002, p. 112) A significant portion of Wageman’s music is orchestral, but he has also composed chamber music and an opera (Legende, 2006). For Rosebud (1988), he received the 1990 Matthijs Vermeulen Prize from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. The jury was taken by the “original use of the orchestra” and the “subtle feeling for proportions and sensitivity of the timbres”. In the first version of Wagemans’ MCN/Donemus composer brochure, Paul Luttikhuis wrote “those observations apply to about any piece by Peter-Jan Wagemans”. Erik Voermans recognizes in Wagemans’ aesthetics “a relationship to those of Matthijs Vermeulen”. (Het Parool, December 16, 1991)