The evening will start with the premiere of 'Szene am Bach', a composition by Kees Tazelaar, dedicated to Jaap Vink, who passed away on January 30th.
As a teacher, technician and improvisator in the analog soundsynthesis technique, Jaap has been of invaluable importance in the development of the Dutch electonic music.

In his own way he has been mentoring, teaching and inspiring countless national and international composers and students, with his unique approach, in the analog studios of Sonology, and before that at CEM in Bilthoven.
In time we will publish more information about his work on the Willem Twee studios website.

Kees Tazelaar, who is on the program for the upcoming studio4 concert, has been working on a new 8 channel composition in the last few months, based on techniques he has learned from Jaap at the beginning of 1980.
For us it seemed an appropiate time to remember Jaap with this to him dedicated piece, titled 'Szene am Bach'. With the premiere of this composition, we would like to start the concert.

Read the intro text by Kees Tazelaar on 'Szene am Bach' below, because it will give more context and the reason why we added this piece to the studio4 concert program.

Photo:
Still from the interview with Jaap Vink
by Hans Kulk, 2017

Kees Tazelaar - 'Szene am Bach' (in memory of Jaap Vink) - 2022/23
8 channels 23:30

In the summer of 2022, I happened to come across a folder with notes from the time I had lessons from Jaap Vink at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht. That was from 1981 to 1983.
Some of the circuits covered then I still use in my lessons in the current Voltage Control Studio, others I had completely forgotten.
I decided to try to realise some of these circuits digitally, and it worked out quite nicely. Still, the results did not fully correspond to my memories and to the tape recordings I kept from the time of my lessons with Jaap. The question then was why I wanted to realise those circuits digitally at all: after all, I still have almost all the equipment from that time at my disposal at Sonology today.
Many sessions in the Voltage Control Studio followed, and very soon I achieved results that not only closely resembled the results of the time, but were also the start of a new composition.
Working on this piece was on the one hand a journey through time in which the memories of the studio in Utrecht from 40 years ago sometimes became almost tangible, on the other hand I now had a much clearer idea of how this sound material could be purposefully expanded into a large form.

Kees Tazelaar in Studio II of the Institute for Sonologie in Utrecht, 1984. Photo Fabrice Kley.

In order to draw the listener's attention as much as possible to the sound details and small color changes, I finally decided to strip that large form of all drama: no sudden outbursts or abrupt transitions, but only slow, undulating movements that mainly originated from the circuits and not afterwards imposed on the sound material.
And of course these activities also evoked memories of Jaap himself: not only of his lessons, but also of the times I saw him at work or when he played pieces like Tide in the studio and demonstrated how they were made.
I had last met Jaap in September 2020 in Bilthoven when he and Gottfried Michael Koenig opened the restored garden house of Huize Gaudeamus where Jaap had set up a studio for electronic music in 1961. I now wanted to talk to him again to tell him about my almost finished new piece, but I couldn't get him on the phone in distant Termunten. Hans Kulk then decided to call Jaap's neighbor and carer Mirije. Jaap turned out to no longer live independently and his condition left much to be desired, but he very much appreciated our interest. That was on 23 January. In the days that followed, things quickly went downhill, and on 30 January, he passed away in the nursing home in Appingedam at the age of 92. I had completed Szene am Bach the day before.