Biography
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Born
1950 (age 75)
John Borstlap (b. 1950) studied at the Rotterdam Conservatory and took a Masters degree at the University of Cambridge (England). His Violin Concerto won prizes at the Prince Pierre Competition in Monaco and the Wieniawski Competition in Poznan (Poland). He received commissions from various institutions including the Johan Wagenaar Foundation, the Dutch Government and the Culture Company.
His chamber music is performed regularly in the Netherlands and abroad, and has also been recorded for many radio broadcasts. Several performances of his Sinfonia in 1990 by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra established John Borstlap’s reputation as a distinctive orchestral composer. In 1997 a CD of chamber works was issued in England ('Hyperion's Dream', Albany Records UK), which the composer was asked to introduce on national Dutch TV.
In 1998 John Borstlap organised a chamber music festival ‘Tradition and Renewal’ in Haarlem with internationally renowned performers. In 2001 his symphonic poem 'Psyche' was successfully premiered in Manchester (UK) by the New Queen's Hall Orchestra and received its Dutch premičre in Enschede played by the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.
John Borstlap is also an author on contemporary music and wider cultural issues, with articles published in various magazines in the Netherlands and abroad. In 2001 his groundbreaking essay 'Recreating the Classical Tradition' was published in the volume 'Reviving the Muse' (Claridge Press, UK). Also he has been engaged in the annual music conference 'Redefining Musical Identities' at the University of Amsterdam, which first took place in 2002.
In 2002 he set up the Amsterdam Composers Group together with the eminent composers Jeff Hamburg and Joep Franssens. The group’s artistic credo can be summarised as the 'Renewal of Cultural Traditions', bridging the gap between new music and traditional performance culture. In February 2003 the group featured in a live programme on Dutch national TV, and in July 2004 the German national radio station ARD dedicated a programme to CGA’s music and ideas: ‘Visions of a new European music’. The group's proposal to the Ministry for Culture in 2003 for a new way of organising the state subsidies for new music, has set a reform in motion in 2006.
John Borstlap's music re-interprets the central-European classical tradition as it was before the onset of 20C modernism, in order to further develop it in a personal way.
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