räsonanz – Lucerne 2025
Robin de Raaff
Robin de Raaff, born in 1968 in Breda, Netherlands, discovered his own diverse musical world through playing classical piano as well as the bass guitar. After being introduced to the legend and legacy of Jaco Pastorius, De Raaff’s musical world expended explosively as an instrumentalist and composer. Those fully composed works led him to enrol as a student of composition. His opus one, his String Quartet No. 1 “Athomus” met with great praise in a Masterclass led by Pierre Boulez held by the Dutch Nationa Opera. He first studied composition with Geert van Keulen and later at the Amsterdam Conservatory with Theo Loevendie, graduating cum laude in 1997. In 1999 De Raaff had the special privilege of being invited to work as George Benjamin’s only composition student at the Royal College of Music in London where he also studied with Julian Anderson.
In 2000 De Raaff was invited to the renowned Tanglewood Music Center as the ‘Senior Composition Fellow’ which was the beginning of an ongoing relationship resulting in a series of commissions (Piano Concerto for the festival and Entangled Tales for the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and performances of his septet Ennea’s Domein and Un Visage d’Emprunt. This was the beginning of a bigger exposure with performances and residencies in North America through festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Cabrillo Festival (Santa Cruz), Banff Center, Lincoln Center (New York).
De Raaffs opera Waiting for Miss Monroe (2012) was commissioned and produced by Dutch National Opera and was received with much acclaim by the international press including Tagesspiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung. De Raaff’s Violin Concerto was selected as the Best Orchestral Work of the year 2008 in the Dutch composition competition Toonzetters. His special interest in opposing a soloist to an orchestra led him to compose a Cello Concerto (2013, commissioned by Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra) and Percussion Concerto (2014, commissioned by The New Juilliard Ensemble). In September 2016 De Raaffs oratorio Atlantis was premiered by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and two soloist conducted by Markus Stenz. His second Violin Concerto ‘North Atlantic Light’ was written for Tosca Opdam. The solo version was performed in Carnegie Hall in June 2018, the orchestra version was premiered in May 2019 with the Nederlands Philharmonic Orchestra in Amsterdam. Current commissions include new orchestral pieces for the NTR ZaterdagMatinee series and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and a new Piano Concerto to be written for one of the most versatile Dutch pianist of new music, Ralph van Raat, commissioned by Holland Festival to be premiered in 2022 by Matthias Pintscher conducting the Radio Filharmonic Orchestra.
De Raaff teaches composition and orchestration at Codarts, former Rotterdam Conservatory of Music.
Marcel Molle