Dutch composer Louis Andriessen died on Thursday, July 1, in a care home in Weesp, North Holland. His death was confirmed by Boosey & Hawkes, his publisher. He was 82 years old.
Louis Andriessen, son of composer and conductor Hendrik Andriessen, studied at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with his father. He completed further studies in Milan from 1962 to 1963 with Luciano Berio and in Berlin from 1964 to 1965 (Ford Foundation scholarship). Since 1974 he has taught instrumentation and composition himself at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and was a freelance composer. He dealt with different musical genres and art forms – including music theatre and film. He was an eclectic composer with an own brand of minimalist-influenced music, but also used elements derived from Igor Stravinsky’s works, big band jazz, popular styles and even serialism.
Still, he was kind of a contestant. In 1969, he and some other musicians disrupted a symphony concert at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, protesting what they viewed as a temple to the elite class and the moribund state of music programming. Thereafter, Andriessen rejected the idea of the symphony orchestra playing a role in his music.
A few years later however his successful piece, De Staat, based on Plato’s The Republic and scored for singers, winds, strings and electric guitars, received its world premiere at the Concertgebouw in 1976.
