Muziek Centrum Nederland

Peter-Jan Wagemans

Peter-Jan Wagemans (1952) once professed that he aimed ‘to write notes whose musical and emotional essence is clear to people who, for example, can also understand the Sixth Symphony by Mahler.’
Twenty years ago this was still a remarkable and provocative statement: emotional music was not highly regarded by many of his fellow composers. For this reason Wagemans characterises himself as a modern traditionalist, somebody who respects all facets of music history, but who also wants to renew: he has managed to say something new without completely reinventing the language itself.
 
Wagemans is not an adversary of Schoenberg and Stockhausen, but he has nothing to add to their compositions. For Wagemans these composers are the culmination of a development rather than a beginning, as they themselves claimed. Something new needed to be found. And according to Wagemans, the solution did not lay in further renewal of the language, but in reforming the means of musical expression.
Nowadays, composing with conventional means and aiming for communication with a larger audience can be a source of inspiration, a starting point.

Ever since Wagemans graduated at the Conservatory of The Hague it has been one uphill journey. Besides fulfilling the positions as composition teacher and programme director at, among others, the North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra, an increasing number of commissions for compositions have taken up a lot of time. Wagemans has written music for The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra and The Brabant Orchestra, and Riccardo Chailly premiered De stad en de engel (The City and the Angel, 1996) with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Recently the large-scale, colourful Seventh Symphony has come out on CD, this September a new work will be premiered for the opening of the renovated concert hall de Doelen in Rotterdam, and in 2011 Freiburg will be getting a new opera. The spirit of the age is always favourable to a fantastic composer such as Wagemans.

Floris Don

Visit Peter-Jan Wagemans' website 

Current events and premieres:

Saturday 19 September: Dan weer weg - Licht, for the opening of the renovated concert hall de Doelen, Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra.

February 2011: Legende, opera. Music Theatre, Amsterdam. 8 performances.

June 2011: New opera (world premiere), commissioned by the opera in Freiburg (Germany).    

3 characteristic statements by Peter-Jan:
  • ‘What music was to the 19th century, film is to the 20th century. It tells the major stories of our time.’
  • ‘Modernism in music has produced great works. But they were written in a kind of musical Esperanto. And the audience simply did not feel like learning that new language.’
  • ‘Dutch new music is just as good or bad as that from abroad. Only the Dutch composer got lost in bickering, political gibberish, bureaucracy and national indifference.’
Peter-Jan Wagemans [photo: Teo Krijgsman]
photo: Teo Krijgsman
concise personal portrait:

Peter-Jan Wagemans’ interests:
His wife, Sushima and good weather (in that order).

Peter-Jan Wagemans’ heroes and inspiration:
The works of Wagner, Céline and David Lynch.

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