Rudi Martinus van Dijk

Rudi Martinus van Dijk (27 March 1932, Culemborg, Gelderland – 29 November 2003) was a Dutch Canadian composer of classical orchestral, chamber and vocal music, often featuring violin or piano.

He studied with Hendrik Andriessen and Leon Orthel at the Royal Conservatory of Music in the Hague and first came to the fore as a composer at the age of 19 when his Sonatine for piano was performed at the International Gaudeamus Music week. Van Dijk emigrated to Canada in 1953 and two years later became a pupil of the American composer Roy Harris. The Canada Council of the Arts enabled him to further his studies in Paris with Max Deutsch, a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, while concluding his piano studies with Kendall Taylor in London. On a regular basis in the 1950s and 60's, Van Dijk wrote music for and also performed as a pianist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Between 1964–1966 Van Dijk worked at the British Broadcasting Corporation in London in educational television programmes broadcast throughout the world. From 1966 onwards, teaching became part of his music life. In that year he was appointed teacher of piano and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and in 1972 at Indiana University and Berklee college of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1985 he returned to Europe and spent an entire year focusing on his composition in Casares, Spain after which he became composer in residence at Dartington Hall in Devon in the United Kingdom.

Van Dijk has created an impressive oeuvre. His music has become increasingly more popular in England and Europe. His Concertante for Flute, harp, percussion and string orchestra (1963) was first performed in the Netherlands in 1965 by Koos Verheul, solo flautist with The Hague Philharmonic and with members of the Radio Chamber Orchestra, and has since then been played numerous times in Canada, Finland, and the United States. The Shadowmaker (1977) was commissioned and sung by Victor Braun with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mario Bernardi. The Netherlands premiere of his Violin Concerto (1984) was given in 1991 by the Polish violinist Robert Szreder with the Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Zeeuws Vlaanderen Festival conducted by Jan Stulen. The National premiere of his Epigrams for Orchestra (1961) took place in 1993 with the Hague Philharmonic conducted by Jac van Steen, and the Piano Concerto (1994) in 1996 by the North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra with Douglas Madge as soloist conducted by Viktor Liberman.

...
Wikipedia