Donemus Webwinkel — Rossem, Andries van

Andries van Rossem was born on December 20, 1957 in Leerdam, The Netherlands. He studied organ with Johan van Dommele at the Arnhem Conservatory and took composition lessons with Klaas de Vries and Peter Jan Wagemans at the Rotterdam Conservatory. In 1990 the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Culture awarded him a scholarship to study with Franco Donatoni in Milan. In addition, he took summer courses with Morton Feldman, among others.
Van Rossem taught contemporary music and music theater at the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, as well as organ and harpsichord at the Markant cultural center at Apeldoorn. During the academic year 1992-93, when he was “composer in residence” at ArtEZ, his work was the focus of concerts, lectures and workshops.
In addition to this, Van Rossem is one of the founders of the music theater company “De Plaats,” for which he co-created around twenty music theater productions. In 2012, the Orgelpark at Amsterdam presented a composer’s portrait of his recent work. In that same year, he gave a masterclass at the Conservatorio di Musica in Sassari, Italy. In cooperation with the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Orgelpark, he has developed three music projects in the past five years.
Van Rossem has also released several CDs, including: Brisk, Composers’ Voice Highlights CV 27; Piano, percussion, guitars & winds, Klimop 003/004; Longen en Tongen, Challenge Classics 2006; Ton sur Ton; Rothko, Orgelparkrecords 014.
Van Rossem’s works have been performed by, among others, the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, the Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra), the Radio Chamber Orchestra, The Metropole Orchestra and the European Youth Orchestra, led by conductors such as Ed Spanjaard, Richard Dufallo, Lev Markiz, Jacques van Steen, Lucas Vis, Roy Goodman and Peter Eötvös.
The Gelders Orkest commissioned him to write four orchestral works, one of which, a part from the cycle ‘Pier and Ocean‘, inspired by the painting by Piet Mondriaan of the same name, was presented during a Composer Portrait in 1993. He also composed numerous works commissioned by various Dutch ensembles, including the Asko/Schönberg (Concerto), the New Ensemble (‘Walthamstow‘), Amsterdam Sinfonietta (‘Strings & harpsichord‘), De Ereprijs (‘Piano, percussion, guitars & winds‘), the Netherlands Wind Ensemble (‘Pier and Ocean‘), and various international ensembles, including Ensemble Recherche (Freiburg), the Composers Ensemble (London), Ensemble Nuove Sincronie (Milan), Caput Ensemble (Iceland), Talking Drums (New York) and the Kronos Quartet (San Francisco). His work was performed at the Dutch Music Days in 1994 and 1996, the Holland Festival of 1996 and the Warsaw Autumn Festivals in 1990 and 2000. The Foundation Intro/in situ commissioned him to write music for five location projects, one of which was the ‘Spotting‘ project in 2006, a composition based on Messiaen’s transcriptions of birdsong, realized in cooperation with Ralph van Raat.
A full-length work on the ‘Via Crucis‘ premiered recently and, for the 2016-17 season, nine works are scheduled in the context of “Composer in Residence Musicus Sacrum,” one of which will be the premiere of a piano concerto.
At the end of his compositions studies, Van Rossem received the Prize for Composition in 1987. In the following year, he received the Encouragement Award for Music from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.