Dick Raaijmakers (

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

, 1 September 1930 –

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

, 4 September 2013), also known as Dick Raaymakers or Kid Baltan, was a Dutch composer, theater maker and theorist. He is considered a pioneer in the field of

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroa ...

and

tape music Jack Dangers (born John Stephen Corrigan, 11 January 1965) is an English electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco. Career Prior to founding ...

, but has also produced numerous musical theater pieces and theoretical publications. Raaijmakers studied piano at the

Royal Conservatory of The Hague The Royal Conservatoire ( nl, Koninklijk Conservatorium, KC) is a conservatoire in The Hague, providing higher education in music and dance. The conservatoire was founded by King William I in 1826, making it the oldest conservatoire in the Nether ...

. From 1954 to 1960, he worked at Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. in Eindhoven in the electro-acoustic field. Under the pseudonym Kid Baltan, a

anadrome An anadrome is a word whose spelling is derived by reversing the spelling of another word. It is therefore a special type of anagram. There is a long history of names being coined as ananyms of existing words or names for entities related to the ...

of "Dik

Natlab The Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (English translation: ''Philips Physics Laboratory'') or NatLab was the Dutch section of the Philips research department, which did research for the product divisions of that company. Originally located in the ...

" – Raaijmakers' nickname, he realized three tests of popular music with the help of electronic means. in the world). This work has been collected and re-released under the name Popular Electronics. Early Dutch electronic music from Philips Research Laboratories, 1956-1963. From 1960 to 1962, he was affiliated with the University of Utrecht as a researcher. From 1963 to 1966, he worked with Jan Boerman in a self-established studio for electronic music in The Hague. From 1966 until his retirement in 1995, he worked as a teacher of Electronic and Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatory (The Hague) and from 1991 as a teacher of music theater at the interfaculty of Sound and Vision of the Royal Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp).

Biography and works

Raaijmakers was born as Bernardus Franciscus Raaijmakers in

and studied the piano at the

. From 1954 to 1960, he worked in the field of electro-acoustic research at the

NatLab The Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (English translation: ''Philips Physics Laboratory'') or NatLab was the Dutch section of the Philips research department, which did research for the product divisions of that company. Originally located in the ...

Royal Philips Electronics Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

Ltd. in Eindhoven. Using the alias Kid Baltan (''Dik NatLab'' reversed), he and Tom Dissevelt formed Electrosoniks and produced some of the very first electronic

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...

. The most important LP of these two artists i
The Fascinating World Of Electronic Music
published in Netherlands in 1959. Two years before, one of the tracks on the album
Song of the 2nd Moon
was published separately. Nine years later was the launch of the US version of the LP entitle
Song Of The Second Moon

Jean-Jacques Perrey Jean Marcel Leroy (; 20 January 1929 – 4 November 2016), popularly known as Jean-Jacques Perrey, was a French electronic music performer, composer, producer, and promoter. He is considered a pioneer of pop electronica. From 1960 to 1962, he held an appointment as scientific staff member at the

University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

. From 1963 to 1966, he collaborated with Jan Boerman in his own studio for electronic music in the Hague. He was one of the co-founders of

STEIM STEIM (STudio for Electro Instrumental Music) was a center for research and development of new musical instruments in the electronic performing arts, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beginning in the 1970's, STEIM became known as a pioneering cen ...

, the STudio for Electro-Instrumental Music. In 1966, he founded the electronic music studio at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and lectured on electronic and contemporary music until his retirement in 1995. From 1991, he taught

music theatre Music theatre is a performance genre that emerged over the course of the 20th century, in opposition to more conventional genres like opera and musical theatre. The term came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s to describe an avant-garde approac ...

at the Image and Sound Interfaculty at the same conservatory. He died on 3 September 2013. His archives are preserved at the Netherlands Music Institute. Raaijmakers studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium The Hague until 1953. From 1954 to 1960, he worked at Philips in the field of electroacoustics, after which he was a research assistant at the Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht until 1962. From 1963 to 1966, he ran a studio for electroacoustic music in The Hague with Jan Boerman. Until 1995, he taught electronic music, from 1991 electronic music for musical theater at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague. In the early 1960s, Raaijmakers composed a number of electroacoustic works such as Vijf canons, Flux and Plumes. Between 1967 and 1972, he created "photokinetic objects", which were exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1971 and in the Gemeentemuseum The Hague in 1972. De grafische methode tractor was created in 1976 and De grafische methode fiets in 1979, two pieces based on the work of film pioneer Etienne-Jules Marey. In 1977, the audiovisual production Mao leve! Was born. Between 1981 and 1984 Raaijmakers created a series of productions for tape, film, theater and percussion ensemble that revolved around the film Night Owls by Laurel and Hardy (Shhh !, The Microman, The Soundman, The Soundwall, Ow! And Come on!) . The series for which Raaijmakers composed the music was performed at the 1984 Holland Festival. In 1983, Ping-Pong was created, a stereo radio production about a table tennis game between Louis Andriessen and Cornelis de Bondt. The following year, Ecstasy (in memoriam Josine van Droffelaar) was performed, for which Raaijmakers received the Matthijs Vermeulenprijs. In 1985, he designed a neon sculpture for the new building of the Groningen City Conservatory. In the 1990s, a series of works for music theater was created: Intona (1991), Dépons / Der Fall (1992), The happy hand / open (1993), Der Fall / Dépons (1993), De promenoir van Mondriaan, (1994 ), De val van Mussolini (1995) and Scheuer im Haag (1995). Raaijmakers' oeuvre covers a wide variety of genres and styles, varying from sound animations for films to extremely abstract pulse structures, from "action music" to infinite voice patterns, from electro-acoustic tableaux vivants to extracts of music theatre. He is considered as someone who combines disciplines such as visual art, film, literature and theatre with the world of music. Raaijmakers has created numerous electronic compositions, "instructional pieces" for string ensembles, phono-kinetic objects, "graphic methods" for tractor and bicycle, "operations" for tape, film, theatre, percussion ensemble, museum and performance, artworks for offices and conservatory, and many soundscape compositions and music theatre productions, including some for the Holland Festival and for theatre company Hollandia. His theoretical essays are evidence of his profound interest in special inter-media connections. For instance, in his latest publication ''Cahier M'' (2000) Raaijmakers elaborated upon the connections he saw between the 19th-century French physiologist

Étienne-Jules Marey Étienne-Jules Marey (; 5 March 1830, Beaune, Côte-d'Or – 15 May 1904, Paris) was a French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer. His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinema ...

, composer Pierre Boulez, architect

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...

and the musical views of Piet Mondrian. One of his most important books is ''The Method'' (1985), in which he describes in an exact but also poetic way how motion, cause and effect and their perception are interrelated.After obtaining a diploma in radio technique, he decided to deepen his theoretical knowledge and was particularly interested in mathematics,

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and acoustics. Under the name Kid Baltan, he released several records considered to be the first Dutch electronic music, pioneering popular electronic music, in particular the LP'' the Kid Baltan '' from 1957. He never stopped exploring the links between scientific research and artistic creativity. Founder of Dutch electronic music, he built bridges between contemporary music and the work of the French physiologist

. For example, he is the designer of a mechanism called '' De grafische methode fiets '' ('' The Graphic Method: Bicyclette '' '' The Graphic Method '' is the name of a work by Marey.), composed of a kind of bicycle accompanied by a complex system of sensors placed on its actuator, and which aims to reproduce in sound form, on the scale of the auditorium, the efforts of the latter (tension muscle, shortness of breath, heartbeat etc.). Designed in 1979, the instrument was exhibited throughout the month of November 2008 at the

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

Contemporary Music Festival, UK. He created other similar instruments but of much larger size, in particular in the context of the play '' De val van Mussolini '' (''La Chute de Mussolini '', 1995). valmussolini

Awards

Raaijmakers received several awards for his contribution to the development of visual arts and music in the Netherlands: * In 1992, from the Foundation for Lifetime Achievement Awards for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (BKBV). * In 1985 and 1994, the

Matthijs Vermeulen Award The Matthijs Vermeulen Award is the most important Dutch composition prize. It was named after the Dutch composer Matthijs Vermeulen (1888–1967). During the years 1972 through 2004, the prize was awarded annually by the Amsterdam Foundation f ...

. * In 1995, the Ouborg Award for his lifetime achievements from the City of The Hague. * In late 1995, the biennial "Festival in de Branding" was dedicated exclusively to Raaijmakers' musical and visual work. The 2014–2015 season of the festival will once again be dedicated to him. * In 2004, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Johan Wagenaar Foundation and an honorary doctorate from the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

. * In November 2011, Raaymakers received the Witteveen+Bos Award for Art+Technology for his entire oeuvre.

Oeuvre

Music theatre productions and works of art

Compositions

Selected publications

* * *

Discography

Much of his early work has been re-issued on the Basta label: *''The Fascinating World Of Electronic Music By Kid Baltan And Tom Dissevelt'' (1959) * ''Song Of The Second Moon: The Sonic Vibrations Of Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan'' (1968) *''Dick Raaijmakers - Complete Tape Music'' - 3 CD box, Basta #3091 562 * ''Tom Dissevelt, Kid Baltan, Henk Badings and Dick Raaijmakers - Popular Electronics. Early Dutch Electronic Music from Philips Research Laboratories 1956-1963'' - 4 CD Box, Basta #3091 412

References

External links

* The Fascinating World Of Electronic Music (w/ Tom Dissevelt) 1959 * Song Of The Second Moon P(w/ Tom Dissevelt) 1968
Composer, Researcher, Artist
Arjen Mulder and Joke Brouwer on 'The wonderful world of Dick Raaymakers' * Sonik Re-Entry 1957 * Intona (1992) * Intona (Full Version) (1992)
Dick Raaymakers
at v2.nl * * as Kid Baltan * as Kid Baltan {{DEFAULTSORT:Raaijmakers, Dick 1930 births 2013 deaths Dutch male classical composers Dutch classical composers Dutch electronic musicians Musicians from Maastricht 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers 20th-century Dutch male musicians 21st-century male musicians