New Frontiers in Music:
One on One with Jacob TV

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage
1608 Walnut Street, 18th floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Though Jacob ter Veldhuis has become one of Holland’s most frequently commissioned and performed composers, his music is anything but conventional. His work has been said to posses an explosive strength and raw energy combined with extraordinarily intricate architectural design. Preoccupied with American media and world events, ter Veldhuis (aptly nicknamed “Jacob TV”) makes superb use of electronics, incorporating sound bytes from political speeches, commercials, interviews, talk shows, televangelists, “and what have you” into his music, creating a colorful mix of “high” and “low” culture.

PMP hosted Jacob TV for a conversation about his work and career with NewMusicBox editor Frank J. Oteri, followed by an audience-led Q+A period.

About Jacob TV
Dutch “avant pop” composer Jacob TV (aka Jacob ter Veldhuis, 1951) started as a rock musician and studied composition and electronic music at the Groningen Conservatoire, where he was awarded the Dutch Composition Prize in 1980. During the eighties he made a name for himself with melodious compositions, straight from the heart and with great effect. “I pepper my music with sugar,” he says. Long queues at the box office for the four-day Jacob TV Festival in Rotterdam in 2001 already attested to the growing popularity of this composer, both in the Netherlands and abroad. His Goldrush Concerto, the Third String Quartet and several of his so-called boombox pieces like Grab It! became hits, inspiring the work of various choreographers. Early in his career, TV stood up to what he called the “washed-out avant garde,” which made him a controversial figure in certain circles. He strives to liberate new music from its isolation by employing a direct—at times provocative—idiom that spurns “the dissonant,” which in TV’s view reflects a completely devalued means of musical expression. His “coming-out” as a composer of ultra-tonal, mellifluous music reached its climax with the video oratorio Paradiso. In May 2007, the Whitney Museum of American Art organized a three-day festival celebrating his music in New York City.

“Ter Veldhuis’ no-nonsense, up-front music is immediately appealing. . . . His music sings, swings, provokes and seduces with the greatest delight.”—Dagblad De Limburger

“The private universe that ter Veldhuis often creates is fascinating in its original approach to the material and its outstanding sense of timing. He succeeds in achieving… ‘meditative’ and awe-inspiring results without employing all manner of mystical hoo-ha.”—Luister

“Highly expressive and emotional, almost anti-intellectual music, clear of texture and architectural in form, highly organized and basically tonal, though betraying no inclination towards any neo-classical procedures. A kind of non-repetitive minimalism, brooding and powerful.”— Records International

About Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri is a musician, composer, and the editor of www.newmusicbox.org, a web magazine published by the New York-based American Music Center. Oteri’s  compositions run the gamut from operas to bluegrass songs and have been performed at venues from Carnegie Hall to the Knitting Factory. He is an advocate for new music and has written articles on the subject for publications such as Time Out New York, BBC Music, and the Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.