Oscar van Dillen
From www.oscarvandillen.com
Oscar van Dillen was born 25 June 1958 in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
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Introduction
Ever since I graduated april 2002 in classical composition, with the composition (including live video-projection) Memos for a new Millennium for Disklavier with player which was part of my final exam portfolio, I have been finding ways to work with artists in different disciplines: museal theater, sculpture, 3D live animation, fashion design, animation movie, video installation, as well as a new string quartet to Joris Ivens' film “De Brug” from 1928. Since 2006 I have regularly worked with Canadian poet, artist and filmmaker Clive Holden, on various projects: films, surround-sound video-installations and web-based art, all aiming at an equality between sound and vision. Many times it was the music which inspired a project, as was the case in the animation film Forecast were the music was conceived and composed as the actual story-teller to the storyboard before the actual visuals were created. Works were commissioned by various institutions.
I come from a family of architects, with strong interests in art. As a child I saw among other things for example the large exhibitions of the works of Jeroen Bosch, of Brancusi and of Giacometti in the Netherlands, and grew up on a rather remarkable musical diet consisting of Baroque and 20th Century music, supplemented by Jazz and World Music, receiving classical music and flute training since I was 7 years old. Having a strong connection to the visual arts in general, after high school I started out studying architecture while never being without (parallel at times) music study as well. I decided finally to not pursue a career as a visual artist (I also painted and had had a first exhibition in a multidisciplinary cooperation with later fellow composer Isak Goldschneider) but instead devote all my time and energy to the creation of music.
I am a member of Componisten 96. My "official" musical studies concern North Indian classical music, Jazz, Medieval music, Renaissance music and Western classical music. Personally I have a strong link in general to the actual performance of music, not solely because I have performed myself both as a flutist and conductor, but especially since in my opinion the performer is the ultimate person to create the reality of what music is: a real-time art. My own musical scores bear witness to this, see for this also what Ulrich Dibelius' wrote about De Stad in his article “Komponisten im Sog des Globalen. Zu einigen Veränderungen” (MusikTexte - Heft Nr. 117, 2008).
My work is strongly inspired by World music. My melodic treatment is highly influenced by Indian classical music, as is my treatment of musical time in the broadest sense. My rhythmic treatment is both additive and divisive in nature, and can be traced to many rhythmic traditions especially in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans. My harmonic treatment, refined by studies ranging from Medieval music to Wagner, from Pygmy music to the works of John Coltrane, ever originating in concentrated listening to overtones in intervals, voices or instruments, is a synthesis of anti-tonality with an expanded intuitive modality. I am always looking for special timbres created by simultaneous sounds, as can be seen in my scores, which contain many subtle playing instructions. My form treatment is free yet clear: awareness of form is created purely by memory, and I deliberately use many silences as well. To create music, especially as a composer, one needs to let go of all thinking in "fixed systems", whether known or new - and rather control such matters as discipline, method and attitude instead, as these are inwardly-directed parameters. I consider music to be primarily a real time-art as well as a real-time art, intended to allow listeners to participate live in the creation, as co-perceivers, satisfying three basic human "instincts": wonder, inquisitiveness and a sense of delight. Music could perhaps be the only human "language" which explains itself immediately in the very process of listening.
Since 1997 I have been teaching at Codarts University for the Arts, Rotterdam, where I developed the Academy-minor “World Music Composition in Practice”, there I also teach (Western: Jazz and Classical) music-theory and am a thesis-counselor.
This page below will collect short biographies of Oscar van Dillen for use in program notes:
Short biographies for use in program notes
Concerning 2 Cameras @ Sea and collaboration with Clive Holden
With specialist studies in Classical North Indian and Medieval music since 1977, as well as training in Jazz, World- and Classical Western music, theory and composition, Rotterdam composer Oscar van Dillen (*1958) has a very broad background from which to draw, both in his works and as a professor of music at Codarts University for the Arts. With Mathematics and Architecture among his other studies, he can be regarded as a specialist with a universalist background. He was recommended as "a knowledgeable polyglot, and a philantropic world citizen", as he served on the international board of directors of Wikimedia, the foundation behind Wikipedia.
Oscar van Dillen's musical works are being performed worldwide. Perhaps the Chamber-Symphony de Stad is his best known work, released 2003 in Germany on CD, with the composer conducting the work. In the Netherlands he worked with film directors Pieter Jan Smit and Adriaan Lokman. His collaboration with Clive Holden goes back to the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2005. After a screening of Trains of Winnipeg their first encounter immediately led to a frank and lively discussion. This inspiring first meeting gradually developed into a close friendship, and since 2007 they are collaborating on the project Utopia Suite, of which 2 Cameras @ Sea (the musical composition subtitled Waves and Tides) is the latest production.
(September 2008 - 217 words)
