English:George Van Dam (Q527392)

Violinist and composer George van Dam has focused increasingly on the performance of contemporary music since the mid-1980s. As violinist with ictus, of which he is a founding member, as a guest player with the Ensemble Modern, MusikFabrik or independently, he has worked with leading composers Adès, Aperghis, Benjamin, Eötvos, Francesconi, Hosokawa, Kagel, Kurtàg, Ligeti, Lindberg, Mamiya, Reich, Sciarrino, Saariaho, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Joji Yuasa and in Belgium with Philippe Boesmans, Fabrizio Cassol, Kris Defoort, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Karel Goeyvaerts, and others.
Several pieces were written specially for him, including Violin Concertos by Walter Hus, Thierry De Mey and Misato Mochizuki (Homeobox – Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, premiered together with Bernhard Wambach, piano, and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie dir. Roland Kluttig).

Being in such close contact with contemporary musical creation and with contemporary playing techniques has provided him with a great interest and an ideal ground for composing, of which his String Quartet 1993 is the first result.
Later works include chamber music, three song cycles, a Violin Concerto with Timbila Orchestra, music for theatre and dance performances – by Josse De Pauw, Rosas, Ultima Vez, Ballet National de Marseille i.a. – and film music.
In 2005 he received a Plateau Prize (Best Belgian Composer) for the soundtrack of Friday or another day at the Flanders Film Festival in Ghent.

As a composer he also enjoys working with visual artists Manon de Boer, Angela Bulloch, Richard McGuire, Robert Suermondt, Ana Torfs and Trudo Engels, with whom he devised the theatrical form opera secco, a performance context with live music, visual material and machinery, without text. The first series of opera secco called randomJimy  was presented at KunstenFestivaldesArts in 1996.

Upcoming projects include recordings of earlier works, the Violin Concerto with Drumming Grupo Percussão Porto and the Electric Songs cycle.
A new cycle of opera secco for small ensemble is currently in preparation.

A new work in concertante opera form, MELANCHOTOPIA, for Claron McFadden and ensemble, commissioned by Witte de With in Rotterdam, will be premiered on 2 September 2011.

George van Dam was born in Namibia in 1964. He studied violin, organ and harpsichord in southern Africa and in the USA before immigrating to Brussels in 1984, where he studied at the Royal Conservatory. His teachers include Dorothy DeLay, Zinaïda Gilels, Robert Kohnen, Albert Markov, Georges Octors, Nicola Petrovič, Johan Pieterse, Aaron Rosand, and Boudewijn Scholten.