TROMP international music competition & Festival

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The Tromp International Music Competition and Festival is a music festival in Eindhoven, Netherland.

It is held every two years; since 2004 its subjects are string quartet and percussion on a rotating basis. The 19th edition of 2008, 15-23 november, will be devoted to String Quartet.

TROMP is named for and is organized by a foundation in memory of one of Eindhoven's business and cultural leaders, Mr. Theo Tromp (1903-1984). His legacy supports the TROMP organisation, this in direct cooperation with the city of Eindhoven. Active participation by his surviving family members is a continuing and unique aspect of the TROMP event.

First held in 1971, the TROMP Music Competition was open to young musical talent from Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Upon the opening of the Music Center Frits Philips in 1992, TROMP gained more standing through their new professional facilities. In addition, the competition focused on those instruments for which few professional competitions as yet existed. Since 2002, TROMP has become an international competition, inviting participants from all over the world. Among its laureates Tromp holds the likes of: Emmy Verhey, Bart van der Roer, Claire Edwardes, Quatuor Amadeo Modigliani and Yi-Ping Yang.

The organization became also increasingly professional. Jury members were selected on the basis of their international reputations, e.g. Norbert Nozy, James Wood, Bill Cahn, Anders Loguin in 2000 (percussion), Adolph Herseth, Markus Stockhausen and Kevin Volans in 2002 (trumpet), Henk Guittart, Stefan Metz, Janet Ying, Charles Sewart and Isabel Charisius in 2004 (string quartet) and Evelyn Glennie, Trilok Gurtu, Arnold Marinissen, Paul Koek and Peter Sadlo in 2006 (Percussion).

A central part of every competition is a commissioned composition by an important composer. In recent years this included the likes of Louis Andriessen (‘Woodpecker’ for percussion, 2000), Kevin Volans (‘Trumpet & String Quartet 2’, 2002) and Jacob ter Veldhuis (‘Barracuda Concerto’ for percussion and symphony orchestra, 2006) are connected with the competition. As of 2006, TROMP has also added a performance with The Brabant Symphony Orchestra during the finals to the competition programme.

Next to this central composition, TROMP has also imposed itself to actively stimulate the development of repertoire for the combination of its two central instruments: percussion and string quartet. This has already led to four new compositions (by Florian Maier, Oene van Geel, Dugal McKinnon and Arnold Marinissen), which premiered during the 2006 edition.

The TROMP competition awards a range of prizes, with a total sum of €45.000,-. Next to the first, second- and third prizes, there is also a prize awarded for the best performance of a work written by a Dutch composer and prizes awarded by the public, press and Youth Jury. Next to these ‘financial’ awards there is also a range of development prizes. TROMP has set the aim to support their Laureates in a more actively way by offering a transatlantic concert tour and professional recordings. Besides, every participating quartet will receive recordings of their performances for promotional use.

The central event of the TROMP is the Competition. But besides that, since the 1990s, the Tromp Music Competition has been expanded to include concerts at other locations in Eindhoven. The Tromp Festival offers a broad, up to date and innovative portrait of the instrument central to the Competition one which includes others genres in addition to classical music. Artists that lined up during the 2004 edition are among others: Kronos Quartet, Alban Berg Quartet and Borodin Quartet. In 2006 the festival was opened by a unique collaboration between Evelyn Glennie, Trilok Gurtu and Fred Frith.

Since October 2007, TROMP is a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions.^[1]