Compositions

Youth works

From a young age, composition and improvisation were part of my music making. My first fragments of own written music were nice ideas, but certainly not worth performing. For the subject of music in high school, I wrote a few small pieces, among others a kind of film composition to accompany a fragment of a scene from the video game Xenoblade Chronicles, a choir arrangement of a song by Earth, Wind & Fire, and a free composition with the title 'To the Summit'. The end product of my so-called profielwerkstuk (graduation assignment) was a composition called 'The journey of a life', which was a mini-musical about a Syrian refugee who fled to the Netherlands. Here I combined western instruments and forms with Arabic melodic and rhythmic patterns. Since the composition had to be performed, and at the time I did not know anyone who could improvise in this style, I had to leave out the element of improvisation..

Piano Quintet (2019-2023)

Only in May 2019 I started working on a serious, large-scale, 'classical' work: my piano quintet. I did not have any experience writing for piano, so I wanted to learn by doing. It was a road of many discoveries in composition technique and style. I tried combining different styles in one work: a semi-classical sonata form, a jazz movement with improvisation, a 4/4 Waltz as a fun, lighthearted intermezzo, and an impressionist fantasia-like movement.

At the time I listened a lot to piano quintets by Brahms, Franck and Taneyev, which were a big source of inspiration for me, although I could not imitate their style at all because of my lack of knowledge of composition technique and piano texture.

During my first study year I encountered the symphonies of the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg, which have had a great influence on my composition style. The symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams have also indirectly contributed to my style as I have been fond of them for many years.

They were not my only source of inspiration, however; the soundtrack of Xenoblade Chronicles has had a special place in my heart for a long time, and I also listened frequently to jazz fusion, big band and crossovers, which I actually still do.

During the study years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 I had composition lessons with Meriç Artaç, who is a professional composer and a fantastic teacher at the Conservatory of Amsterdam.

These classes have left a clear mark on the fourth movement of my quintet, which in my opinion is both technically and musically the most effective of the four movements. During the composition process, which took more regular effort than with the other movements, I got many new ideas related to piano texture, register, interaction within the string ensemble, harmonic progressions, rhythmic freedom... and I noticed especially how much I didn't know. Meriç has helped me discover all of this and has contributed to the writing of this movement through her critical ears, useful ideas and her enthusiastic support.

The fourth movement can be interpreted in different ways; for me it was an expression of complex, subtle emotions (a piece of my personality) intertwined with a conflict between light and darkness. Listening to it in a cinematic or programmatic manner is possible, but it may also simply be absolute music.

In the end I decided to perform this final movement on my bachelor's exam in violin in 2023.

Here is the recording.

List of works

Piano Quintet (May 2019 - Jun 2023)
Three adventures for string quartet (Sep 2022 - Jun 2023)
Sonata for Viola and Piano in the style of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Feb 2025 - Jun 2025)
Sonate voor viool en piano (Aug 2024 - Jul 2026)

(Feel free to send me an email if you are interested!)

In progress: