Donemus Webshop — Blanken, Jelger

Jelger Blanken is a Dutch pianist, composer and chamber musician. He studied piano at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam with Ludmilla Baslawskaja and Håkon Austbø, winning the Medal of the Friends of the Concertgebouw and the Eduard van Beinum Scholarship. From an early age, he has been involved in performing and studying contemporary music both as an artist and researcher. He earned his Master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Sciences from Erasmus University Rotterdam with a thesis on the dispositions of Dutch contemporary composers and their connections to specific conservatoires. As a fully self-taught composer, his work is shaped by his extensive experience performing a wide range of chamber music repertoire as a pianist.
Since 2003, Blanken has served as teacher at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, while collaborating as a chamber musician with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Philippe Graffin, David Waterman and Raphael Wallfisch. He has performed at many Dutch and international festivals, including the Franz Liszt Festival (Utrecht), International Chamber Music Festival Schiermonnikoog, Grachtenfestival (Amsterdam), Enghien International Musical Encounters (Belgium), and Rovigo Cello City Festival (with Floris Mijnders), as well as chamber music series of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Munich Philharmonic.
Strongly committed to contemporary music as both performer and composer, Blanken recorded works by modern Dutch composers with Philippe Graffin for Onyx Classics (Rotterdam Gergiev Festival 2010), earning acclaim from Gramophone, The Strad and International Record Review.
Blanken's compositional style employs climaxes and harmonic progressions reminiscent of late-romantic and neo-romantic music, yet within his own often free-atonal idiom. For him, seeking the driving and guiding force of harmonic usage is crucial, upon which melodies unfold. He believes contemporary music can form part of regular classical programs, not as a separate genre, so that even lovers of 'traditional' classical music can appreciate it. This accessibility arises partly from his refusal to break entirely with past style periods, provided they are translated into a contemporary, individual context. Unlike formalist claims, Blanken holds that music can express more than just the notes themselves, echoing the concept of poetic reason by Spanish philosopher and poet María Zambrano, where poetic imagination transcends rational structures to reveal hidden existential truths and the unity of being. In this view, art bridges the composer's personal experiences, background, musical history, and emotions at specific life moments.
Premieres include early works New Ground for piano solo (2007, Theatre Orpheus, Apeldoorn), Six Songs on poems by Apollinaire (2008, Paleiskerk, The Hague), and Late Solace for organ (2009, Old Church, Delft); recent highlights are Embrace for flute and piano (2024, world premiere at Amare, The Hague by Alena Walentin and Jelger Blanken, Asian premiere at National Concert Hall, Taipei), Reflections Nº 1 for piano (2024, world premiere by Craig White at Sint Egbertuskapel, Schiermonnikoog), and Shape-shifting for violin and piano (2025, world premiere by Dúo Victora at Teatro del Carmen, Vélez-Málaga).
His works are published by Donemus Publishing since 2022.