Bastiaan Blomhert
"On Martin's Todestanz"

 

Born in 1944, Bastiaan Blomhert studied musicology at the University of Utrecht and viola and conducting at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Blomhert earned his Ph. D. in 1987 and was the professor of music history in the Conservatories of Utrecht and Arnhem, where he also coached chamber music and taught instrumentation. Since the late 1970s, when he founded the Oktopus Wind Ensemble his field became the classical wind band music, both in the concert hall or the recording studio as conductor and as researching musicologist.

Blomhert has toured all over the world and his editions and arrangements were published by Breitkopf & Härtel, Chester, Doblinger, Molenaar and others and are frequently performed. His lecturing and teaching activities include appearances at many universities and schools of music, e.g. the Royal College of Music (London) in 1999, Cornell University (Ithaca) in 1999 and at congresses, e.g. WASBE in 2001 (Luzern) and the CBDNA (Minneapolis) in 2003. Blomhert is married and lives in The Hague, The Netherlands.


"On Martin's Todestanz"
12th July 2005 (12:30 to 1:30pm)

The repertoire for wind ensemble from the 20th Century will be expanded with the publication of two "new" works by the Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974). The first work Concerto pour les instruments à vent et le piano dates from 1924 and is comparable to those comments by "classical" composers on jazz, like Strawinsky's Ragtime or Milhaud's Création du Monde. The work was successfully premiered by The Murray State Wind Ensemble under Dennis Johnson in Carnegie Hall. The second work Totentanz zu Basel im Jahre 1943 (Dance of Death in Basel in the year 1943) reflects both the traditional Dances of Death in the Basel streets during Carnival and the grim feelings about Death in 1943. The music (scored for big band) is the accompaniment of a pantomime, in which Death meets various human beings and selects them to die or not to die. The edition still is "under construction." Dr. Bastiaan Blomhert, the editor, will introduce these pieces.