Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Composer > A > Jurriaan Andriessen

Profile of Jurriaan Andriessen on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Jurriaan Andriessen  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 15th November 1925
   
Place of Birth: Haarlem, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
   
Profession: Composer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Jurriaan Hendrik Andriessen (November 15, 1925–August 23, 1996) was a Dutch composer, whose father, Hendrik, brother Louis, and uncle Willem have also been notable composers. Andriessen studied composition with his father at the Utrecht Conservatory before moving to Paris where he studied with Olivier Messiaen.

The bulk of Andriessen's output is for the stage; his study in Paris was primarily in writing film music. He had a variety of musical influences which he drew upon, including American film music, Aaron Copland's ballets, folk music of various cultures, neoclassicism, and serialism; this eclecticism combined with his compositional skill made his writing well-suited to scoring dramatic works. His first stage composition was incidental music for "The Miraculous Hour", a play premiered at the celebration of the 50th year of Queen Wilhelmina's reign, in 1948. In 1954 the Haagse Comedie (now the Nationaal Toneel, or "National Theatre") appointed him resident composer, where he wrote scores for Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, among numerous others.

His stay in the United States on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship from 1949 to 1951 was a fruitful one for his orchestral writing, another notable area of his work; during this time he composed the Tanglewood Overture for Serge Koussevitsky, and the Berkshire Symphonies, later used as ballet music by George Balanchine. His compositions were commissioned for state celebrations, including the wedding and the coronation of Queen Beatrix and the silver jubilee of Queen Juliana.

In addition to the theatre works he is most noted for, Andriessen was also a prolific composer of chamber and vocal works, many of which were meant to be performed by amateurs; he has also been a director for television.

Selected works

  • Het wonderlijke uur (The Miraculous Hour), incidental music (1948)
  • Berkshire Symphonies, orchestral (1949)
  • Rouw past Elektra (Mourning becomes Electra), incidental music (1954)
  • Entrata Festiva, orchestral, for the wedding of Princess Beatrix (1966)
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, stage score (1968)
  • Een Prince van Orangien, orchestral, for the silver jubilee of Queen Juliana (1973)
  • Entrata della regina, orchestral, for the coronation of Queen Beatrix (1980)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Jurriaan Andriessen