Jeroen van Veen

Dutch pianist Jeroen van Veen is a leading figure in Western European minimalism, both as pianist and as composer. Fanfare has called him the leading exponent of minimalism in Holland today. Van Veen was born May 2, 1969, in Herwen en Aerdt in the Netherlands. He took up piano at seven and studied at the Utrecht Conservatory with Alwin Bär and Håkon Austbø, passing exams in 1993. Van Veen went on to take master classes with Roberto Szidon, Claude Helffer, and Hans-Peter and Volker Stenzl; the latter prepared him for work with his brother Maarten, and with Sandra Mol as Duo van Veen, which has had particular success in the U.S. and won the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami. Festival appearances at the Reder Piano Festival (1988), the Festival der Kunsten in Bad Gleichenberg (1992), Wien Modern (1993), and the Holland Dance Festival (1998) cemented his reputation among audiences, and he has been a fixture at the Lek Art Festival. Van Veen has played recitals in Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia, and the U.S., and he has performed orchestral concerts conducted by modern composers Peter Eötvös and Robert Craft. Van Veen co-founded the biannual International Student Piano Competition in 1995 and remains its artistic director. Van Veen's recording career began in 1992 with Duo van Veen. He has recorded for various Dutch labels, in particular the budget imprint Brilliant. For that label he recorded a nine-volume Minimal Piano Collection, released in 2006. He has also issued recordings of music by major minimalist composers, including the crossover composer Ludovico Einaudi and, in 2018, John Adams. Van Veen also released a performance of his own works in 2014. His music falls loosely under the minimalist banner with influences from jazz, trance music, pop, blues, and more. In 2019, Van Veen honored Japanese film composer Ryiuchi Sakamoto with a collection of solo piano interpretations called Sakamoto: For Mr. Lawrence Piano Music. ~ James Manheim