Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen is one of the most distinctive and influential composers working today. Drawing on a diverse range of influences from Bach, Stravinsky, be-bop jazz, Indonesian Gamelan, funk and R&B, he has constantly sought to break down the barriers between 'high' and 'low' culture in his music to fashion something gritty, powerful and unique. His left-wing politics and anti-establishment stance make him a hero to composers and musicians from all over the world, many of whom have flocked to his native Amsterdam for study. Over 40 years, he has steadily built up an impressive list of works, many of which challenge conventional ideas about what music is, and what it can do.

Andriessen was born in 1939 into a musical family: his father, uncle and elder brother were all composers. From them, he learned to admire the works of J.S. Bach and Igor Stravinsky which – along with the jazz and be-bop he listened to on the radio as a teenager – have remained his most important influences.

As a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Andriessen studied composition with Kees van Baaren, one of the first Dutch composers to write serial or 'twelve-tone' music. After graduating in 1962, Andriessen went to study with the Italian composer Luciano Berio, whose works combined strict serial techniques with a characteristically Italian lyricism and feeling for instrumental colour, and which often have a strong dramatic element, even in purely instrumental pieces.

Andriessen's music from this period (pieces include, Anachronie I and The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven for Promenade Orchestra and Ice-Cream Bell) combines avant-garde techniques with irreverent quotation from diverse musical styles, following the example of American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), whose music was only just becoming well-known in Europe.

Collaborative works with other artists include a series of dance projects, the full length theatre piece De Materie created with Robert Wilson for the Netherlands Opera, and three works created with Peter Greenaway: the film M is for Man, Music, Mozart, and the stage works ROSA Death of a Composer and Writing to Vermeer, premiered at the Netherlands Opera in 1994 and 1999 respectively. Recent film collaborations include The New Math(s) created with Hal Hartley in 2000, broadcast on TV and performed internationally. Nonesuch Records has released a series of recordings of Andriessen's major works, including the complete De Materie, ROSA Death of a Composer and Writing to Vermeer.

Recent commissions include La Commedia, an operatic setting of Dante for Netherlands Opera premiered at the Holland Festival in June 2008 in a production by Hal Hartley, and The Hague Hacking premiered by the Labèque Sisters and the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in January 2009.