DCV 409 – Piet-Jan van Rossum: Arena (Live)

Piet-Jan van Rossum (25/01/66) studied composition with Louis Andriessen, Jan Boerman and Dick Raaymakers as well as the organ with Rienk Jiskoot. Van Rossum above all directs his attention to composing and writing. In his own words: “I look upon myself as a storyteller, as a member of an ancient tribe of shy, wild people who, through stories, sometimes succeed to create another way of experiencing time. My work comprises life as I live it: a piece of wood full of splinters, chunks of beauty and the fracturing or lack of it: lots of waiting, silences. This explains my fascination with scratched movies, lazy eyes, a broken voice, old ramophone-records.

Concert series ‘Aardlek: urgent matters’ brings today’s music to Apeldoorn and Arnhem. With music by Piet-Jan van Rossum and poet Mischa Andriessen as a special guest Aardlek connects current themes with new compositions, commissioned for the Ereprijs.

Concert series ‘Aardlek: urgent matters’ brings today’s music to Apeldoorn and Arnhem With music by Piet-Jan van Rossum and poet Mischa Andriessen as a special guest Aardlek connects current themes with new compositions, commissioned for the Ereprijs.

Concert series ‘Aardlek: urgent matters’ brings today’s music to Apeldoorn and Arnhem. With music by Piet-Jan van Rossum and poet Mischa Andriessen as a special guest Aardlek connects current themes with new compositions, commissioned for the Ereprijs.

Sentiments are fine, sentimentality is not. A oneliner I learned during my studies, but also while listening to music, reading books, looking at art and movies. I learned it’s better to keep a distance while writing, to put a frame around my frozen emotions.

Education Michael has a degree in English Literature from the State University of New York. Despite having no formal music education, he has an active international career in several aspects of the music business.

"Creativity is an unconscious act of insanity, in a burst of which the truth is born. No matter how beautiful or disgusting it may seem to people far from madness, its value is beyond doubt, both for the author and for those able to sense its invisible beauty. After all, gratitude for endless trials and suffering brings joy and blissful emptiness… Being shocked by music is about pain turning into beauty and getting under your skin, taking away your breath; about everything stopping to move. I want to be scratched inside by sound and experience the fleeting, invisible beauty." - Maxim Shalygin

Celia Swart (1994, NL) is a new music composer, saxophone player and visual artist. Growing up playing saxophone and piano, she found her love for composing.