The Pan Asian Awards were presented for the first time at Capital C in Amsterdam on Friday night. In the three different categories, composer Joey Roukens, biomedical engineer and fashion designer Dan Jing Wu and writer and journalist Haroon Ali picked up awards
Roukens won the Pan Asian Award. The judges praised the “enormously prolific composer”, who started writing music at a young age. According to the judges, Roukens is “one of the most beloved composers of our time, but he composes timelessly”.
The Pan Asian Awards are organised by interest group Pan Asian Collective (PAC), which works to represent Asian Dutch people. With the award ceremony, PAC wants to put talents with an Asian-Dutch background in the spotlight. A total of 30 people were nominated, divided over the three different categories. The jury included parliamentarian Mei Li Vos, speed skater Kai Verbij and digital strategist and tech columnist Ilyaz Nasrullah.
Why were the awards created? “For the recognition and recognition that so many Dutch people have Asian roots,” says jury member. “We (the Netherlands, ed.) have been an immigration country for maybe three centuries. And many of the Asians have contributed a lot to art, science, literature, music and technology. That is little recognised and acknowledged.”
Jury member Mei Li Vos:
“You’ve probably heard his music before, but you may not have known it was Joey Roukens,” said jury member Mei Li Vos. “Roukens already knew as a child that he wanted to compose. At seven, he was in piano lessons and soon after he started writing new music. At 13, a piece of his music was already performed by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. Joey is a hugely prolific composer, writing music for many musicians, companies and occasions. He can do anything, is the short summary. If you play Roukens’ playlist on Spotify, you end up in a frenzy of pianos, percussion in the big pieces for orchestras, the blues, Christmas songs and the magical concert for the two pianos by the brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen. Roukens combines pop, jazz, classical and is not afraid of anything. He is one of the most beloved composers of our time, but he composes timelessly. In the next century, they will still be listening. His music has already broken through many boundaries and we assume that Roukens will become as much of a household name in Dutch music as Vrienten, Sweelinck and Andriessen.”
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention