“It is important to me to make music without having appointed ideas in advance about how the music is supposed to sound. What I call ‘pictorial music’ is about passion, risk and skill, not to forget the musician’s personality. The intensity of a good concert is like balancing on the edge of a razor blade. I try therefore to approach every concert like a painter will approach his empty canvas. To start from scratch every time and to give myself up into the attempt remains endlessly captivating to me”.
Albert van Veenendaal (The Netherlands, 1956) studied piano at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In his career, he has been working with many national and international jazz-, world- and classical musicians throughout Europe. He founded various groups of his own and played solo concerts. He composed for and accompanied theatre- and dance companies and works as composer/arranger/producer. Van Veenendaal teaches composition and piano at the Utrecht Conservatory (department musician 3.0) and is advisor composition for Performing Arts Fund, the main foundation for creative art in Holland.
During the past years, Albert van Veenendaal toured the Dutch theatres with his own groups, like “Pavlov” (presenting a project round and about Sinatra), his (piano) trio Veenendaal/Kneer/Sun, Spoon3 (songs, improv & electronica). In 2001 he founded “Travelling Light”, a platform for pianists to play together. In various Travelling Light projects he played with e.g. Rob van den Broeck, Cor Fuhler, Jozef Dumoulin and Sylvie Courvoisier. He won the Dutch Jazz Competition of 2001 with his trio “On the Line” and organized 15 editions of the multidisciplinary festival: The Evening of the Longest/Shortest Night. Van Veenendaal takes part in an ongoing series of literary concerts around well-known Dutch writers.
With bass player Meinrad Kneer he founded Evil Rabbit Records, a label for contemporary improvised music. His compositional works are supported by the Performing Arts Fund – a trust for creative music. Recently he has been composing for Calefax reed quintet (featuring Eric Vloeimans), The Amstel Saxophone Quartet, pianist Marcel Worms and ‘Bigtet’ Tetzepi, featuring Louis Sclavis. The music/soundscape he created for the film ‘Film Earth’ was nominated for a “gouden kalf”, the most important Dutch Award for film.
Albert van Veenendaal refers to himself as ‘pictorial musician’ because of the epical and cinematic character of his music. Improvisation and composition go hand in hand and merge seamlessly. With an open approach and interaction with his fellow musicians he creates musical constructions that are unconventional and intuitive, displaying his unique style that will instantly be recognized.
In his project ‘Minimal Damage’ Van Veenendaal engages in expanding the sound of a grand piano by preparing it accordingly. At the same time he is interested in collaborating with other art forms such as film, dance and pictorial art.
Albert van Veenendaal worked with Han Bennink, Monique Besten, Corrie van Binsbergen, Marc Bijl, Jasper Blom, Cameron Brown, Joost Buis, Manu Codjia, Calefax, Remco Campert, Sylvie Courvoisier, Tobias Delius, Matthieu Donarier, Arnold Dooyeweerd, Jozef Dumoulin, Martin van Duynhoven, John Engels, Cor Fuhler, Oene van Geel, Jodi Gilbert, Dick de Graaf, Wilbert de Joode, Robert van Heumen, Hans Hasebos, Wiek Hijmans, Steven Kamperman, Tobias Klein, Meinrad Kneer, Kees van Kooten, Michel Masot, Bart Maris, Claron McFadden, Esmée Olthuis, Hein Offermans, Josse de Pauw, Felicity Provan, Alan Purves, Yonga Sun, A.L. Snijders, Dirk Tanghe, Toon Tellegen, Nikos Tsilogiannis, Michael Vatcher, Wu Wei, Paul Weiling, Xu Fengxia, and many others.