Willem Tanke - Classical Organist/Avant-garde jazzpianist/Innovator

My life has been shaped by the music of J.S. Bach, Olivier Messiaen and John Coltrane. As a classical organist I play Bach, Reger, Franck and Messiaen with the soulfulness and intensity of Coltrane. As an improvising and composing pianist my contribution to avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical music consists of, among other things, a wide variety of loop patterns and the use of bird song passages by Messiaen in an entirely new context, all within the modal framework of Coltrane’s free jazz. 

Become a member of my Facebook group Soulful Bach Interpretation in the 21st Century: click here
Become a member of my Facebook group Soulful Grooves in the 21st Century: click here


My artistic truth:

-from when I was 18 years old the guide line for developing my organ technique has been a passage in the first biography of Bach, written by Forkel in 1802, about contemporaries of Bach stating that when playing the organ the great man achieved a huge expression with very small movements of hands and feet only. 
-in the past 40 years I gradually realised that this attitude towards organ playing could raise the level of concentration in such a degree that music seemed to come from a world of ideas and archetypes which I associated with Plato and Jung. This was confirmed and enhanced in 2009 by reading Bruno Nettl’s article Thoughts on improvisation (1974), in which he points out that Pima Indians in Arizona considered music making as unravelling a message from a supernatural world, with hardly any distinction between performing, improvising and composing. 
-from about 1996 I have been teaching myself not only the organ, but also the piano according to Forkel’s observation on Bach. Contrary to the organ however, I never played pieces from the classical piano repertoire. Instead I developed my technique by making my own exercises for improvisation and composition, in the spirit of Pima indians but also, as I gradually realised, inspired by the 18th century practice among keyboard players to study partimenti, a reservoir of musical formulae for performance, improvisation and composition. In the past twenty-five years I built up my own reservoir of 1001 (the number is symbolic and refers to a world of imagination) rhythmic, melodic and harmonic patterns, also for performance, improvisation and composition. 



I am able now to play these patterns at any time of day or night similar to, for instance, Indian and Persian classical music and jazz. This enables me to combine and vary the patterns in endless ways. True improvisation occurs when the hands (and feet in organ playing) seem to be quicker than the controlling mind. 
-my actual musicianship consists of playing pieces from the classical organ repertoire and performing/improvising/composing my own music as a pianist and an organist, solo and with other musicians, in a context that combines Western classical music, jazz, world music and pop music. I have the feeling that I am at the start of a new musical career now and that the most essential is yet to come. 
-since the summer of 2016 I feel a very positive energy coming from in particular organist Feike Asma, singer D.C. Lewis, Saint André of Montreal and Saint Kateri Tekawitha. 

NEWS

Inspired by the extraordinary rhythmic intensity which accompanies the profound spirituality of J.S. Bach, Olivier Messiaen, John Coltrane,Ustad Bismillah Khan and other musicians, I am preparing a course called Soulful Grooves in the 21st Century for Codarts, University of the Arts, Rotterdam. Students of the classical, world music, jazz and pop departments will participate with this course. The corresponding Facebook group is not only open for Codarts teachers and students; everyone can get approved for membership.