Merlijn Twaalfhoven

Composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven (1976) is mostly inspired by archaic and non-western music, raw sounds of nature and delicate melodies clash together into a very broad soundpalette. His compositions were performed by orchestras in the Netherlands, Japan, Belgium and Switzerland and were rewarded with several prices.

With his foundation �La Vie sur Terre�, Twaalfhoven is responsible for al lot of unusual, sometimes large scale, projects which immerge a broad public into a total experience for all senses.

On extraordinary locations like a shipyard, the dunes or the rijksmuseum, but also in venues like Paradiso and Vredenburg classical musicians work together with fanfares, DJs, coirs, cooks and hairdressers.

As lector �PopArt� at Artez (the school of art in Arnhem, Zwolle and Enschede) he is researching new ways for artists to reach  fresh groups of public, without loss of their artistic ideas.

He brings this into practice in his �La Vie sur Terre� projects, he collaborates with Toneelgroep Amsterdam, dance group Emio Greco|PC and Springdance Festival. For the Dutch chairmanship of the EU, Merlijn has made a great number of projects with local musicians on location in Central Europe. He is broadcasted almost as often on MTV as on classical radio 4.