Sat 8.13 Entangled Tales

ROBIN DE RAAFF (b. 1968)

Robin de Raaff was born in the Netherlands and raised in a musical family. By the time he was a young teenager, composing became his most important musical expression and his very broad musical interests greatly influenced his view on style in contemporary classical music. As a composition student at the Sweelinck Conservatory of Amsterdam, he studied with Geert van Keulen and later with Theo Loevendie. In 1999 De Raaff had the privilege of working 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 Tanglewood Music Center as the ‘Senior Composition Fellow’ and has an ongoing relationship resulting in a series of commissions and performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). In 2007, De Raaff was commissioned by the BSO to write Entangled Tales, which was performed in the famous Koussevitsky Shed conducted by Ludovic Morlot. On August 13, 2011 Robin de Raaff makes his Cabrillo Festival debut when Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra give Entangled Tales its West Coast Premiere. Commissioned by the Netherlands Opera (DNO) in a co-production with the Holland Festival, De Raaff finished his first opera RAAFF in 2004. The birth of this opera began in 1995 with De Raaff’s success at a master class for young composers with Pierre Boulez organized by DNO. Boulez singled out De Raaff’s string quartet Athomus (1992-3) with high praise, further confirming and encouraging the success that De Raaff was already having in Europe. That success led to extensive press coverage of the master class, and de Raaff’s connection to DNO was established. The Netherlands Opera has since commissioned De Raaff to write his second opera about Marilyn Monroe, to be premiered in June of 2012. He also has a strong relationship with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, which has now performed and commissioned his work, including his Concerto for Orchestra and Unisono. De Raaff is currently the Coordinator of the Composition Department at the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music where he has been a professor of composition and orchestration since 2001.

www.robinderaaff.com