Artist Detailed Info: Martijn Padding

Martijn Padding (Amsterdam, 1956) studied piano and musicology at the University of Utrecht, and composition with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

His oeuvre ranges from solo instrumental works to large-scale orchestral compositions and music theatre. His more recent works are less prone to the angular construction and pithy harmonic structure of his earlier pieces, and although Padding's music often still exhibits a technical-musical aspect, a theatrical element is increasingly evident and sound is becoming more important.
Padding's compositional aesthetic precludes any hierarchical relationship amongst, for instance, modernistic elements, influences from popular culture and historical-based doctrines. His compositions, accordingly, treat a broad spectrum of subjects and personages.
His compositions are often the result of a close working relationship with the musicians themselves. Padding's collaboration, since 1998, with pianist Gerard Bouwhuis and the avant-garde quintet Ensemble LOOS has resulted in a number of works (The man on the mountain, Speculum Inversum, Loneny Moose), both with and without electronics. The ensemble played the premiere of the opera TATTOOED TONGUES, to a libretto by Friso Haverkamp, at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 2001 (2003, St Petersburg). Last year Padding's piano concerto Unequal Parts was premiered by Gerard Bouwhuis and the Asko ensemble.

Padding's works are performed by many prominent ensembles, soloists and orchestras in the Netherlands and abroad. Additionally he has made radio documentaries on various subjects, and was the long time piano accompanist of the modern dance companies led by Krisztina de Châtel and Beppie Blankert. Martijn Padding is a member of the composition faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. He is also the chairman of the Dutch composers guild C'96. For the future new work for the Asko ensemble is planned as well as a continuation in collaboration with theatre maker Paul Koek and his music theatre company Veenfabriek.

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