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Willem Jeths has received international recognition for several of his compositions. In 1990 Novelette was selected for the ISCM World Music Days in Oslo, and in 1991 he was awarded an honorary award by the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Wettbewerb in Dresden (Germany) für Streichquartettkompositionen for his first string quartet Arcate (1990). The violin concerto Glenz (1993) and the first Piano Concerto (1994) were awarded second and third prize, respectively, in the Wiener Internationaler Kompositionswettbewerb in 1996. In May 2000 a three-day ‘Willem Jeths Festival’ was held in Rotterdam. Jeths’ compositions were presented alongside works by composers who have inspired him, such as Rihm, Ligeti and Keuris.
The Osaka Symphoniker commissioned the second piano concerto Fas/Nefas in 1997. In 2000 the Kronos Quartet (USA) commissioned Jeths to compose a string quartet. This third string quartet "Intus Trepidare" will be premiered by the Kronos Quartet in october 2004 in Eindhoven, Holland. He has also received a commission from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for a flugelhorn concerto which was very succesfully premiered in september 2002. In october 2003 this Flugelhorn Concerto has been released on a super-audio CD. Willem Jeths is presently colaborating with librettist Friso Haverkamp on the opera "Hades’ Wane", about the chinese Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi. One scene from this opera will be performed in March 2004 in Amsterdam with the Schoenberg Ensemble under the conductor Reinbert de Leeuw and vocalist Susan Narucki. A new piece for chamber orchestra with a central role for the bass-guitar was premiered during the Holland Festival of 2003 in Amsterdam. Presently Willem Jeths is composer-in-residence of the Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra) in Arnhem. Three works for orchestra, chamber music and a new composition will be performed. In 2004-2005 Willem Jeths will be composer-in-residence of the Brabants Orkest in Eindhoven. His new Clarinet Concerto will be premiered by this orchestra and the young clarinettist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer. For 2005 the newly founded orchestra Holland Symfonia requested Jeths to compose a new piece for the opening of the restored Concertgebouw in Haarlem. Since 2003 Willem Jeths is professor in composition at the Brabant Conservatory (Fontys Academy) in Tilburg.
Instrumental colouring occupies a central place in Jeths’ works. The composer is continually in search of new sound potential within traditional instrumental genres such as symphony orchestra and string quartet, and as a result is inclined to add foreign - at times extraordinary - sounds such as gamelan (TIM/BA) and breaking wood (Glenz), or unusual instruments such as overtone tubes (Fas/Nefas). Expanded sound possibilities often lead to new playing techniques. Re-tuning of the strings, for instance, in Glenz and striking the piano strings with wooden sticks in Fas/Nefas are but two examples of Jeths’ resolve to extend the limits of traditional idioms. Jeths does not compose according to a predetermined system; rather, he approaches a composition intuitively and allows large forms to grow organically from sparingly-chosen material. This method of composing is ideally suited to the emotional eloquence and colourful charm of his compositions.
Life
Willem Jeths was born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands in 1959. As a child he received piano and music theory lessons, and from 1980-1982 he studied music education at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam.
In 1982 Jeths made composition his primary course of study, initially under the tutelage of Hans Kox and, two years later, under Tristan Keuris, Kox’s successor as professor of composition at the Utrecht Conservatory. Upon graduating in 1988 the jury unanimously awarded him the Prize for composition. Additionally Jeths studied musicology at the University of Amsterdam between 1983 and 1991. He completed his studies there with a doctoral dissertation on the composer Elisabeth Kuyper (1877-1953) which was included in the book "Zes vrouwelijke componisten" (Six women composers) published by the Walburg Press, Zutphen 1991.