Donemus Webshop — Graaff, Jan-Peter de

Jan-Peter de Graaff (*1992), born in Papendrecht and raised on the isle of Terschelling, started composing at the age of 15. After two years of private lessons in composition with Klaas ten Holt, he was admitted to the Bachelor studies in Musical Composition at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in 2010, where he studied with Guus Janssen, Calliope Tsoupaki and Diderik Wagenaar (BMus 2014, MMus 2016). During his final year he took part in an Erasmus+ exchange programme which allowed him to study at the Royal College of Music (London) with prof. Kenneth Hesketh. During his composition studies, he studied orchestral conducting with Alex Schillings and Jos Vermunt as a minor subject.
Many of his compositions are recognised by a great amount of transparency and use of colour in harmony, structure and orchestration, with an important focus on dramatic arcs and melodic development, usually guided by striking rhythms. De Graaff’s works are inspired by a great amount of musical styles and idioms ranging from French baroque, Eastern and Northern European folk music traditions, to spectralism, jazz, tango and early Hollywood music. From these inspirations, De Graaff creates a musical language that feels familiar, yet still remains completely authentic in the way these influences are incorporated in larger structures, melodies and harmonic progressions. Avoiding clichés, or manipulating them to reveal a completely different musical universe behind it, one can see many of his works as a painting that has another painting under its surface layers, subtly shining through.
De Graaff’s oeuvre includes now about 50 works for various instrumentations, from solo and chamber music (both instrumental and vocal) to pieces for orchestra and Music Theatre. His music has been performed and commissioned by a great variety in orchestras and ensembles, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, the Residentie Orchestra (The Hague Philharmonic), the David Kweksilber Big Band, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Ruysdael String Quartet, Maya Fridman, Pieter van Loenen and Duo Kolthof & Van Raat. Performances took place in venues and music festivals both in The Netherlands and abroad. Several works have been recorded on CD and are available on the TRPTK label.
From 2017, De Graaff one of the artistic directors of Ensemble Shapeshift, a new ensemble-vehicle for organising performances of recent and new composed music, music theatre and opera.