Reza Namavar has not yet turned 30, but already he has been composing for more than half of his life – and he does so successfully. On 8 September 2010, during the Gaudeamus Music Week, his latest work will be premiered in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam: Kraaijlook, for saxophone quartet and ensemble. It will be performed by the Amstel Quartet and Ensemble Lucilin.

In 2005 Reza Namavar listened to the whole series of cantatas by Bach – not just to two or three, but to all of them. This experience made a huge impression on him and influenced his composing: ‘I couldn’t understand why some of these cantatas aren’t much better known – it’s incredibly beautiful music. At that moment Bach came very close to me as a composer.’ In De trompet (The Trumpet, 2006) for symphony orchestra, with which around that time he finished his master’s degree at the Conservatory of The Hague cum laude, the influence of Bach is clearly present, for example at the end.

In his earlier compositions Namavar used to design ‘machines’: constructions of ostinatos that determined the form of the composition and that led it to its denouement with unstoppable energy. ‘By the way, these machines and ostinatos have nothing to do with The Hague School and definitely nothing with minimal music,’ says Namavar. ‘Rather, they are some kind of little Baroque machines.’ De trompet is an example of this: the ostinato that dominates the work is created in the first movement, in the trumpet solo it receives a more transparent treatment and it returns in full glory in the final movement.