Jan Boerman was born in The Hague on June 30, 1923. He has been in electronic music studios since 1959. The Delft Polytechnic in Utrecht, from which the world-famous Institute of Sonology was developed, housed the first electronic music studio in Holland after the Philips laboratory in Eindhoven, which was not generally open to composers.
A select few composers were invited to work at Eindhoven, including Edgard Varèse (who created his Poème électronique there in 1958), but by 1960, Philips decided to close the facilities. It generously passed its equipment on to the Delft Polytechnic, which quickly became the primary site for electronic music in the Netherlands. Administrative problems, however, caused both Jan Boerman and Dick Raaijmakers to leave Utrecht in 1963, whereupon they began setting up a private studio in the Hague. Their facility eventually became incorporated into the Royal Conservatory of Music, and both men became members of the faculty. (Many years later, in 1986, the Institute of Sonology echoed their move by transferring from Utrecht to the Royal Conservatory in the Hague.)
Jan Boerman was trained in the traditional manner as a pianist and composer, and his initial exposure to the electronic music studio was both a shock and a revelation. There was relatively little "repertoire" in this new domain, so, while he had been struggling with serialism and "finding his voice", Boerman quickly intuited that here was a vast new terrain to explore, quite free from the stylistic pressures (i.e., the triumvirate of Paris, Darmstadt, and Cologne) that were so powerfully felt at that time in Europe. Dick Raaijmakers, on the other hand, had been studying broadcasting, recording, and applied electronics at Philips, so was more naturally drawn into the world of studio composition.
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He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in his home town, with Léon Orthel (piano) and, from 1945, with Hendrik Andriessen (composition).
Since 1959, Boerman has built up a vast body of work featuring electronic compositions of unique quality and unparalleled international stature. He integrates concrete acoustic sounds with devised synthesized sounds within a composition to create "music spaces" that take the listener into the unexplored areas between "tone and noise".
From 1956 onwards, Boerman worked in the electronic studios of Delft Polytechnic, Utrecht State University and of The Hague Royal Conservatory of Music, where he has also taught electronic composition (after 1974), and piano.
In the 1960s, Boerman developed a unique method of composition which featured concepts of timbre-movement and tone length proportion that are remarkable. During endless experimentation in the studio, Boerman, like a true alchemist, transformed "dead" tones into "live" sounds. From this untamed world of sound, he brought forth works of great dramatic power through his mastery of the Golden Section. Since the 1970s, he has integrated live electronic music with instrumental and vocal music. Boerman has also composed theatre and ballet music, "music for the listening museum" and, in collaboration with architect Jan Hoogstad, "music as architectonic space".
Since 1974, as Professor of Electronic Composition at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, he has assisted many young composers in finding their way forward. Boerman has received the Matthijs Vermeulen Award Prize for his entire body of work and the Willem Pijper Prize for his composition Vocalise 1994. The complete music tape of Jan Boerman appeared in 1998, on CD (CV-NEAR 04/05/06/07/08), and won the Edison 1999 award for Dutch recorded music.
In 1982, Boerman was awarded the Matthijs Vermeulen Award for his entire oeuvre. In 1997, he was awarded the Willem Pijper Prize for his Vocalise. In 1999, Jan Boerman won the Edison award for Dutch recorded music, for his aforementioned music tape.
Boerman has composed a number of orchestral and chamber music works; the main part of his oeuvre, however, consists of electronic music. He is one of the few composers who persisted in composing for tape. It wasn't until 1976, that Boerman ventured to include "live" sounds in his work: the result was Vocalise - Voorstudie (Preparatory study for a Vocalise). It was followed by an "orthodox" tape: Kompositie 1979. For the ensemble Het Nieuwe Leven, he composed "Weerstand" ("Resistance", 1982) for tape and percussion, and later "Ontketening" ("Unchainment", 1983), for tape and metal instruments. Boerman has also written electronic ballet music, including "De touwen van de tijd" ("The ropes of time") and "Monument voor een gestorven jongen" ("Monument for a dead boy"). "Muziek voor slagwerk en orkest" ("Music for percussion and orchestra", 1991) was performed during the Holland Festival of 1991.
The complete tape music of Jan Boerman is published on CD by NEAR / Donemus: CV-NEAR 04/05/06/07/08. See for more information: the NEAR Composer's Voice cd's.
* score published by Donemus, Amsterdam.