Donemus Webwinkel — Norden, Maarten van

Maarten Hans van Norden was born on November 1, 1955, in Amsterdam.

Education: After a year of studying mathematics, Van Norden chose music instead. At the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Maarten van Norden studied classical clarinet with Jan Koene, jazz saxophone with Harvey Weinapple and composition with Louis Andriessen.

The performance of Van Norden's ‘Cookie Girl by De Volharding on the Bang on a Can Festival 1990 in New York brought him in contact with the Yale- educated young american composers. This led to his 2-year stay at Yale University, where he started working with professor Allen Forte's "pitch-class sets”, which proved to be of great value for his compositional techniques. In 1996, he obtained a Master’s in Music with Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick and Allen Forte.

In 2003, he graduated in "Contemporary Music through Non Western Techniques" at the Sweelinck Conservatory, studying with Rafael Reina.

Career: For several years he worked as composer and saxophonist in groups like Orkest "De Volharding" and in his own jazz-rock band "Future Shock" before he dedicated himself to writing music for classical ensembles.

Besides writing music Van Norden worked as a teacher of music-theory at the Utrecht Conservatory, publishes articles on the use of pitch-class sets and karnatic (south-indian) techniques in composition and occasionally joins the Willem Breuker Kollektief on tour. Also, he writes film music for e.g. Pieters’ Fleury ‘Mene Tekel' (1997).

Compositions: ‘Songs to Make the Dust Dance’ (1995) is the last piece Maarten wrote in the United States. Since his return in Holland he has written for ensembles and orchestras such as the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Chamber Orchestra, the ASKO-Schönberg Ensemble, Nederlands Wind Ensemble, Koor Nieuwe Muziek (Neon), Metropole Orchestra, Osiris Trio, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Matangi Quartet, Slagwerk Den Haag and Aurelia Saxofoon Kwartet.

His orchestral works, chamber-music, movie-scores and popular music are published by Donemus and have been performed at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), "Bang on a Can Festival" (New York), Crossing Border Festival (Toronto), Huddersfield New Music Festival (Eng.), Warschauer Herbst (Pol.), Dutch Music Days 2001/05/06, North Sea Jazz Festival, Djakarta Jazz Festival etc.

How to unite Forte's harmonic system and the rhythmic techniques of the Carnatic music with Schönberg's expression and free jazz is a question Van Norden asks himself each day while composing. "La bonne chanson (2001), for instance, is a romantic piece, written at a time when I had just ended a relationship. On the other hand, Rondo 2 (2004), is one of his most abstract works, especially when one considers the Carnatic rhythmic aspects. Here I applied Southern Indian techniques in my music.”

His latest works include:
-‘Funk Variations’ (2014) for the Asko Schönberg Ensemble, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw;

-‘She Is’ (2013) for Hermine Deurloo, chromatic harmonica + string quartet;

-‘New Work’ (2013) for Ivo Janssen, piano.

Louis Andriessen: “Maarten van Norden is a good example of the development in music making where ‘high brow’ and ‘low brow’ material are combined in a new intelligent musical language.”