Junior Guildhall students and staff (including me) offer an insight into life at this most stimulating place.

Soprano Saxophone with lefreQue

In this video Hans Kuijt (Len Cassée piano)will demonstrate the Soprano Saxophone with lefreQue. In the video "Soprano Saxophone without lefreQue he will do the same without lefreQue, so you can hear the difference. Arioso from Jeffery Wilson. Watch all his music! it is so good!

Henk Alkema – Dutch Composer, teacher and performer

Monday 19 september 2011

 

 
Born - Harlingen - November 20th 1944 / Died - Utrecht August 4th 2011
 
With the passing of this consummate musician the world of contemporary music, jazz, theatre and arts suffers a painful blow. Something of the importance of his contribution was revealed by the many hundreds and multi-national attendants at the recent funeral service in Holland.
Having studied piano with Léon Orthel at The Hague Royal Conservatory of Music and conducting with Willem Frederik Bon an early apprenticeship was spent on tour as a jazz pianist and as composer/arranger/studio pianist for Dutch Radio and TV. Over 500 arrangements for the Metropole Orchestra in Hilversum testify to a prodigious talent and serious craftsman.
This was the start of a career long history of many recordings under his own name. Collaboration with singer and lyricist Hessel van der Wal led to a number of successful productions often featuring the Frisian language, a preoccupation that was to take an even more important step in the composition of his opera RIXT, years later.
From 1974, and following the inspirational teaching of conductor Willem Frederik Bon and later influences of Zolt Deaky and Huub Kerstens, Henk Alkema concentrated more on conducting. There followed musical direction relationships with the Sneeker Cantata Choir and the Frisian Symphony Orchestra, the "Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck"  Symphony Orchestra (Amsterdam), the Frisian Wind Ensemble, the Concordia Concert Choir and almost all of the professional symphony orchestra's in The Netherlands.
It is as a most inspirational teacher that he will be well remembered and he began a serious commitment to teaching from 1978 at the Music Pedagogical Academy in Leeuwarden, this continued with his appointment as chairman of the department of jazz and improvised music at the Utrecht Conservatorium.
As professor of composition and later as acting dean of the conservatorium Henk Alkema touched the lives of countless musicians.
 
A period as composer in residence to Sater (Amsterdam) and theatre group Theater (Arnhem) was followed by music theatre collaborations with Edwin Rutten and performances of their hugely popular music ‘narratives’  Pepe and Kinderman. His series of lectures on composition for the department of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam reveals another side to this creative spirit, these same creative thoughts were thankfully repeated by invitation at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2009. Compositional appointments in the US at Berklee College of Music and the University of Montana where relished and resulted in the commission for a series of song cycles based on American Indian poetry.
The highly successful performances of his first full length opera RIXT (set in his home Frisian language to a libretto by Mark Valencia from the UK) led to a commission from the Dutch government for a new Opera Bonifacius, this had seven performances in 2004/5.
Chamber works, song cycles, choral pieces and jazz compositions complete, in part, the picture of a most significant talent whose musical and personal legacy will take some years to fully appreciate.
He leaves his wife Anna Alkema –Schweizer, two daughters Dieuwke and Femke and his previous wife Sylvia van der Wal.
 
Jeffery Wilson
August 2011