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Martijn Padding (Amsterdam, 1956) studied piano and musicology at the University of Utrecht, and composition with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
His oeuvre ranges from solo instrumental works to large-scale orchestral compositions and music theatre. His more recent works are less prone to the angular construction and pithy harmonic structure of his earlier pieces, and although Padding's music often still exhibits a technical-musical aspect, a theatrical element is increasingly evident.
Padding's compositional aesthetic precludes any hierarchical relationship amongst, for instance, modernistic elements, influences from popular culture and historical-based doctrines. His compositions, accordingly, treat a broad spectrum of subjects and personages. He wrote works about Thelonious Monk, Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg.
His compositions are often the result of a close working relationship with the musicians themselves. Padding's collaboration, since 1998, with the avant-garde quintet Ensemble LOOS has resulted in a number of works (The man on the mountain, Speculum Inversum, Loneny Moose), both with and without electronics. The ensemble played the premiere of the opera TATTOOED TONGUES, to a libretto by Friso Haverkamp, at the Warsaw Autumn Festival in 2001 (2003, St Petersburg). Padding also has a longtime collaboration with theatre maker Paul Koek. In 2008 a largeschale theatre work is scheduled for Paul Koek's music theatre group de Veenfabriek.
Padding's works are performed by many prominent ensembles, soloists and orchestras in the Netherlands and abroad such as Schönberg Ensemble, Asko Ensemble, Ives Ensemble, Residentie Orkest, BBC Orchestra, Ensemble LOOS, Orkest de Volharding, Nosferatu, ensemble Bang on a Can, Studio for New Music Moscow, Gerard Bouwhuis, Marie Frances Uitti and many more.
Additionally Padding has made radio documentaries, and he was the longtime piano accompanist of the modern dance company led by Krisztina de Châtel. Martijn Padding is also a member of the composition faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague. Recently he became chairman of the Dutch composers union C'96.
Martijn Padding 2008 |