Who is Jacob ter Veldhuis?

Who is Jacob ter Veldhuis? That question will be answered in a few weeks as the Dutch avant-something composer appears in Knoxville for a week-long residency and festival, MARCH 30-APRIL 4, 2009, under the sponsorship of the University of Tennessee School of Music and UT's Ready for the World program.

The director of the festival is Dr. Connie Frigo, Assistant Professor of Saxophone in the UT School of Music.

To pronounce his name, put on your best Dutch accent and say- YA•kob ter FELDT•house -and you'll probably come reasonably close.  For that reason he is popularly known in the Netherlands, and elsewhere, as JacobTV, sometimes even JTV.  He has become a frequently performed composer in Europe by orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Russian State Academy Orchestra and the Düsseldorf Symfoniker. Soloists who have gravitated to his works include Branford Marsalis, James Galway, Arno Bornkamp, Claude Delangle, Margaret Lancaster, Andrew Russo, Kathy Supové, Kevin Gallagher and Evelyn Glennie. What is remarkable is that classical, contemporary, jazz and rock musicians all find themselves keenly interested in his music--and audiences in Europe certainly do.

A three day JacobTV Festival entitled "Grab It! The Music of JacobTV" took place at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in May 2007. Here is the New York Times' Anne Midgette's review on the first evening's concert.

In his "boombox" works, soloists or ensembles perform the scores to recorded audio collages that incorporate sound bytes from political speeches, commercials, interviews, talk shows, TV evangelists, and more. These are works that challenge the listener on one level, while simultaneously amusing and delighting them on another.

Some of these "boombox" works will be featured in a free concert on Friday, April 3rd - 8pm, in the Cox Auditorium on the UT campus. The concert will feature a wide array of performers including guest soloists from around the country, the New Century Saxophone Quartet, UT music faculty, and UT music students.

JacobTV's Festival and Residency coincides with the UT Saxophone Project. More details are available on this UT Music information site.