Website: News July 2016
• The first performance of The Enchanted Desert, for organ, flute, percussion and with dance and performance, was very well received. Click here to watch a selection of passages and read what it is about. Never before my music has been presented so completely, as a full evening program. This liberated me from counter-productive energy due to what I felt as lack of recognition during many years. When I started to play my own music on the organ in the ‘90s I was told to restrict myself to Bach, Messiaen and 20th century avant-garde composers; repertoire which by that time had given me a solid reputation. About 2000 I began to practise the piano seriously, however, not in a traditional way but by making my own exercises for improvisation and composition. Again I was told to stop this and return to my roots as an organist. This time I took it more seriously, as the criticism came from musicians that I used to respected for their own achievements. And now in the summer of 2016 I even leave the classical roots for what they are and call myself an avant-garde pianist, as I feel related to that wide range of music, in which improvisation plays an important role. It becomes predictable: “you should not call yourself an avant-garde pianist without having a proper jazz education”. But that does not affect me any longer, it is just a matter of "take it or leave it".
A very positive aspect for musicians nowadays is that everyone can make audio and video recordings and publish them on YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo etc. A large part of the response they get will be objective, from people all over the world without any relation to them. And if the achievement is worthwhile there will always be something to confirm that. Even better: good music published on Internet can not be completely denied, it will be there forever and prove itself in due time. How many talented but unfortunate musicians in the past would not have embraced this possibility? But I am grateful that Jan Welmers crossed my path, first as a teacher and then as a friend. He always let me completely free, while being very critical and stimulating at the same time, not bothered at all by what one is supposed to do according to traditions. That is called good fortune. Eventually the piano may even be closer to me than the organ because the sound is there immediately and allows you to be entirely intuitive in your improvising. With the organ there is always a small delay because you have to reflect on the stops you choose. There is also a physical relief. In the past forty years I minimised my movements as an organist, based on observations by contemporaries of Bach that he was able to get a maximum of expression with a minimum of movements. As a pianist I am no longer bothered by that classical ideal and let myself go like some of the great, revolutionary jazz pianists, such as Cecil Taylor. What a physical excitement that gives. As if using a battery that has been charged during a period of forty years.
I created a new play list on YouTube: Instructional Videos for Codarts - University for the Arts, Rotterdam. It shows my pedagogical work as a classical organist on the one hand and an avant-garde jazz pianist on the other. The description is: “Codarts offers you the depth of tradition and the magic of innovation, challenging you to become the original musician that makes the difference. For talented, hard-working students with a touch for adventure Codarts is the place to be”. That is also good fortune, to work at Codarts, with its departments for classical music, world music, jazz and pop, in a lively city that has a reputation for hard-working inhabitants and innovation.
During almost forty years I have been working on a classical ideal of organ playing: to play with as little movements as possible, like Bach according to some of his contemporaries. I called that The art of doing nothing or The art of playing with relaxed precision. I recorded the complete organ works by Messiaen, Reger’s monumental op. 73 and many pieces by Bach in that spirit. It looks as follows:
In the summer of 2016 I wanted to leave The art of doing nothing behind me and unleash the potential of a temperament only partially manifested up to that moment. Determined to create some kind of breakthrough, I took resource to an unconventional method: to play the piano intensely (only my own exercises) on a pure emotional level, without bothering about good technique and with no restrictions regarding movements. This resulted in a body language that differed very much from what I was used to and apparently (seemingly?) not suited Western classical music at all. Video-recordings show more resemblance with, for instance, jazz and Indian classical musicians. I felt as if my temperament had been liberated, for the benefit of not only my own improvisations and compositions bit also classical organ pieces. Moreover, I
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