Recent news​
23/12/12 - Awards!
Brian Ferry March 2012
After 4 years of trying and participating and having reached it almost for 3 consecutive times, this year I am one of the 4 winners of the annual competition for young composers: "Op weg naar het nieuwjaarsconcert", held by the Dutch Wind Ensemble! This means I will play my winning piece "Love's variety - On the diversities in a universal notion" together with the Dutch Wind Ensemble in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in their annual New Year's concert!
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On top of that, I also won the "Young Talent award", awarded by the Royal Conservatory in the Hague for the second time. This price consists of 3 workshops, held by Calliope Tsoupaki at the conservatory in the Hague and a commission for a chamber piece, which will be performed on a concert in early july.

So, that's a lot of cool stuff to look forward to!

​31/12/12 - New site online!
​Susan Smith March 2012
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Well, this is it, my new site! I started working on it when I heard I won the competition of the Dutch Wind Ensemble. My old website was old an not up-to-date, and I wanted to provide a good new website to the people who got interested in my work after they heard my piece in the new year's concert. ​Let's hope these will be a lot!

On this site, I will post updates about my work, news updates and information and recordings of the pieces I wrote. And if you'd like to contact me or commission a new piece, you can do this through the "Contact" page. It all makes perfect sense, so I invite you to have a look around!
29/12/12 - A beautiful visual for "Aviary"
Brian Ferry March 2012
So, this week, I was working on my site, and after I wrote the text about "Aviary", I realized I still had to make a title sheet for the score of the piece. So I started searching on the internet for images or paintings about birds and started thinking about how I could make such a picture myself. When I typed "birdsong painting" as my search words in Google, I encountered this beautiful painting by Kate Dardine posted on the left. I became wildly excited from the first moment I saw it, and I knew this was the perfect visual for my piece.

I contacted the artist, and after she heard the piece, she agreed with me that the painting and the piece were made for each other. We're now a few days later and everything is settled: I may use the piece as a visual for "Aviary" and further adaptions of the piece. Awesome!

If you're curious about the work of Kate and the story behind the painting, visit www.katedardine.com. I can recommend you to check it out, she's a great artist, who makes beautiful paintings.

Click here for more information about "Aviary".
02/01/13 - Happy new year!

Happy new year everybody! My year started absolutely fantastic. Playing with the Dutch Wind Ensemble in the concertgebouw in Amsterdam was one of the most amazing experiences in my life, and I'm sure I'll never forget how great it was. I'm really grateful to each and every one of the musicians and all the people backstage for this unbelievable experience.

And there's more! At the afterparty, I started talking to people, and a lot of musicians were really enthusiastic about my work. This led to quite a number of possible projects, new pieces or performances. Some of these are: a project with my planned piece for double bass with Wilmar de Visser, an adaption of "Aviary" for symphony orchestra and wind quintet, another performance of CVA, a piece for the Aurelia saxophone quartet and I'll participate in 2 contests this month! So I think I can say things are going well!

Photographs of the concert will follow!

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18/02/13 - Updates
It has been a while since I last posted something, and a lot has happened in the last month!

First of all, in January I wrote an arrangement of the klezmer traditional "Mekhuteneste Mayne" for the arrangement contest of the Ricciotti ensemble, a Dutch street orchestra. This week, I received a phone call, in which I was told my arrangement was selected as one of the three finalists! This means they will play my arrangement in their upcoming tour next week, including during the "Grand Finale" on tuesday the 26th of February. On this day, the arrangements of the 3 finalists will be played, and they will award the first, second and third price, each of which consists of a sum of money, and of course the honor. I'm really happy I made it this far and I'm really looking forward to the 26th!
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And there's more. Projects come and go, and things are going really well! I worked on a piece for 8 trombones, entitled "Dystopia", the past month for the composition contest of the New Trombone Collective, I wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered 20 minutes of film music the past 2 weeks for the short film "Zo ver je kijken kunt", which will premiere on the 27th of February in Pathe Tuschinsky in Amsterdam and I will probably finish my everlasting project "Senses" for concert band for a commission of OBK Bennekom for their upcoming contest. I am absolutely thrilled that I'm able to do so much interesting projects, and I'm lucky I can continue doing so for at least the rest of the school year.
04/05/13 - Back again..
Well, after some time of silence, I have lots of great news..
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First of all, my arrangement for the Ricciotti ensemble won third prize in late February! During a great concert in Felix Meritis in Amsterdam on February the 26th, the 3 arrangements of the finalists were performed, and the prices were awarded. I won third prize, Peter Keijsers second and Thomas Beijer first prize and the audience prize. Congratulations to both Peter and Thomas!
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The following day, another great event was scheduled: the premiere of the film "Zo ver je kijken kunt" in Pathe Tuschinsky in Amsterdam. The venue was completely sold out and it was an amazing experience to see something you worked very hard on portrayed in the most famous cinema in the Netherlands. We received many positive reactions on the film and the music. The film will be published online on the 7th of May!
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A couple of weeks later, I received an e-mail from Remko de Jager, one of the players of the New Trombone Collective, that my piece "Dystopia" I sent in for their competition was selected as one of the 5 finalists! On friday the 29th of March, the final was held during an amazing concert of the New Trombone Collective in their "Slide Factory" european trombone festival. There was some heavy competition, but after the break I got the word that I won both the jury prize and the audience prize. I am still absolutely thrilled by the enormous honor this is, and I am incredibly happy I won both prizes! The piece us published under the label of the New Trombone Collective and can be ordered on http://www.newtrombonecollective.com/shop/NL/.

And now for the future: as my first year in Amsterdam is coming closer to it's end, I still have a lot of great projects running which will keep me busy at least until this summer. The biggest project for the coming months is a commission by OBK Bennekom. They've asked me to finish my everlasting work in progress "Senses", which has been renamed to "Perception", as one of our works for the upcoming contest in late November. This is just one of the great projects I'll be doing the following months!

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05/06/13 - Opera for Wind ensemble
A couple of weeks back, I received an e-mail from the Dutch Wind Ensemble, asking me if I could arrange a fragment of Puccini's "La Bohème" for the JongNBE (Young Dutch Wind Ensemble). A very exciting commission by a great ensemble, so I started working right away. 2 weeks later, the arrangement was finished and I was able to attend a rehearsal in Podium Mozaïek in Amsterdam.

The arrangement was performed on the first of June by the JongNBE and 2 singers from the Nederlandse Reisopera for the occasion of the opening of a new exhibition about the Nederlandse Reisopera at museum Twentse Welle in Enschede. I was asked to attend the performance, and to hear the final result was just magnificent. I'm really thankful they asked me to arrange the piece, and I am very happy with the final result!

And there's more: I received an e-mail from the Arte Duo, consisting of Lineke Lever on piano and Aubrey Snell on saxophone, asking me if I could write a piece for them for a concert in late 2013 with a violin player. So a trio for violin, saxophone and piano is coming up
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09/11/13 - Summer of projects
Well, here I am again, with an update and good intentions to keep updating on a more regular basis...
The summer of '13 has been a busy one for me. I was able to do some very exiting projects, which I'll run down one by one.
At first, I had to finish my first large-scale concert band "Perception" for OBK Bennekom. In early August, after some months (and 3 years of thinking and carrying the project with me) of very hard work, I finally finished my biggest work so far. In August, the piece was approved by the KNFM to be performed on the contest in late November in the 1st division. Rehearsals started in September and on the 3rd of November, we finally got to the moment of the premiere performance. It was a completely mind-blowing experience for me, to have a piece performed which I carried with me for so long and worked so hard on, and to have it performed so well. I am really happy and thankful I got this oppurtunity, and I am looking forward to the last rehearsals and the performance on the 23rd of November in Wijchen!
An other big project was my arrangement of John Powell's film score for "How to train your dragon" for concert band. This arrangement was commissioned by one of my classmates in theory: Daniel Yiau, a very skilled and enthousiast concert band conductor, who organises wind band concerts three times a year in the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. I am really glad I got the chance to arrange my favorite film score for concert band and to have it performd by such an amazing orchestra. Thank you very much Daniel and the Symphonic Winds!
Right before the summer holiday started, I recieved an e-mail from Sofia Gioldasi, a choral conducting student at the CvA. She heard my name from Willem van Merwijk, who had reccomended me to her when he heard she needed an arranger for her final exam. I had some very interesting talks with her about her ideas for the concert and the arrangements, and I finally made 6 arrangements for a variety of small ensembles of wind instruments. The concert was really great and Sofia passed to the Masters programme. Congratulations!
Furthermore, I collaborated with dancers/choreographers Juul Henkens and Liesje Bakker on three short pieces for the TEDxEde event on the 1st of September, based on the theme "Imagine". The result was a series of pieces for piano and string quartet, with solo dance, duets and one group dance, interwoven between the speeches of the TEDxEde event.

And last but not least, in September I wrote my "Trio for violin, alto saxophone and piano" for the Arte Duo and Merel Jonker. This was for me a way to get down to earth again after so many big projects, with a piece based on just 2 ideas and for a smaller ensemble. The premiere performance was in Ede on the 1st of November, and it will be performed again on the 8th of December in IJsselstein.
​Well, that's my update for now. I intend to keep updating my site more often, to keep you updated on projects and compositions I'm working on, so stay tuned!