JAN ROKUS VAN ROOSENDAEL

Jan Rokus van Roosendael

Jan Rokus van Roosendael sought from the beginning an individual idiom that allowed him to express his leaning toward reflection and the spiritual. He initially found inspiration in non-Western music, reflected principally in cyclical musical structures. In his later work, from Windows (1996), his quest for a “new euphony” (that ...
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Biography Jan Rokus van Roosendael

Jan Rokus van Roosendael sought from the beginning an individual idiom that allowed him to express his leaning toward reflection and the spiritual. He initially found inspiration in non-Western music, reflected principally in cyclical musical structures. In his later work, from Windows (1996), his quest for a “new euphony” (that is, a return to pre-avant-gardist tonality) led him to Renaissance polyphony, a development nipped in the bud by his premature death.

1960

Jan Rokus van Roosendael is born in Zwijndrecht on May 6 as Jan Rokus de Groot. He later takes his grandmother's name to avoid being confused with his half-brother, the musicologist and composer Rokus de Groot.

1979 - 1986

He studies composition with Robert Heppener and Geert van Keulen at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, and musicology at the University of Amsterdam.

1983

Iram is performed by New Percussion Group Amsterdam. “The listener is swept along by the irrevocable stream of thoughts from motion to motion,” Leo Samama writes in De Volkskrant. “Chaos arising from the overlapping tempo levels; order as the confirmation of a new tempo, a new motion, swinging and compelling.”

1987

He attends a summer course for young composers organised by the ISCM in Poland with Wlodzimierz Kotonski and Klaus Huber. 'Tala' (1987) is written on commission for a Netherlands Student Orchestra tour in January 1988.

1989

He is awarded the Encouragement Prize by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts for 'Charitas' (1987), “a work for liturgical use that breaks through the mild tone that reigns in this genre,” according to the jury report.

1992 - 1994

'Events' (1991) is premiered at a VARA Matinee concert and 'Static Motion' (1992) is premiered by the Nieuw Ensemble during the 1992 Netherlands Music Days. Also that year, 'Space of Time' (1990) is performed by the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. 'The Harp of Fire' (1991), for soprano and ensemble, is performed at the 1993 ISCM Days in Mexico. For a tour of Japan's LAMI ensemble, he writes 'Shifting Patterns' (1993), and for the Ensemble InterContemporain, he writes 'Sringhara' (1993), which is premiered in Paris in January 1994.

1998

'Windows' (1996) is performed during the ISCM Days in Manchester by the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. The work introduces a new phase in his composition.

2002

On January 30, the Netherlands Chamber Choir premieres 'The Beatitudes' in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

2005

Jan Rokus van Roosendael dies in Oostzaan on February 17. “Van Roosendael was a seeker,” writes Paul Janssen in De Klank. “And a creator, in the most literal sense of the word. Steeped as he was in the knowledge that after World War II, all links with the Western tradition were brutally cut, he systematically created a musical universe that incorporated modal elements and concepts from the music theory of other cultures. As though seeking to lightly review the whole of music history, his interests went from homophony to polyphony and from polyphony to harmony.”

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