Willem Breuker (4 November 1944 – 23 July 2010) was a Dutch bandleader, composer, arranger, saxophonist, and

clarinetist This article lists notable musicians who have played the clarinet. Classical clarinetists * Laver Bariu * Ernest Ačkun * Luís Afonso * Cristiano Alves * Michel Arrignon * Dimitri Ashkenazy * Kinan Azmeh * Alexander Bader * Carl Baerma ...

Career

During the mid 1960s, he played with percussionist Han Bennink and pianist Misha Mengelberg, co-founding the Instant Composers Pool (ICP), with which he regularly performed until 1973. He was a member of the Globe Unity Orchestra and the Gunter Hampel Group. In 1974, he began leading the 10-piece

Willem Breuker Kollektief Willem Breuker (4 November 1944 – 23 July 2010) was a Dutch bandleader, composer, arranger, saxophonist, and clarinetist. Career During the mid 1960s, he played with percussionist Han Bennink and pianist Misha Mengelberg, co-founding the Insta ...

, which performed jazz in a theatrical and often unconventional manner, drawing elements from theater and vaudeville. With the group, he toured Western Europe, Russia, Australia, India, China, Japan, the United States, and Canada. In 1974, he founded the record label BV Haast. Beginning in 1977, he organized the annual Klap op de Vuurpijl (Top It All) festival in Amsterdam. Haast Music Publishers, which he also operated, published his scores. In 1992, Editions de Limon published the book ''Willem Breuker'' by J. and F. Buzelin in France. Uitgeverij Walburg Pers published a Dutch translation in 1994. In 1999, BV Haast published the book ''Willem Breuker Kollektief: Celebrating 25 Years on the Road'', which includes two albums. In 1997, he produced with Carrie de Swaan ''Componist Kurt Weill'', a 48-hour, 12-part radio documentary on the life of Kurt Weill. He died on 23 July 2010 in Amsterdam. He suffered from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, mali ...

and had been ill for some time.

Awards and honors

In 1998, Breuker was knighted with the

Order of the Netherlands Lion The Order of the Netherlands Lion, also known as the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands ( nl, De Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw, french: L'Ordre du Lion Néerlandais) is a Dutch order of chivalry founded by King William I of the Netherlands on ...

. In 2017, the Willem Breuker Prijs was awarded for the first time to . A bi-annual prize for contemporary composers, it was last awarded in 2019 to .

References

External links

Willem Breuker biographyWillem Breuker Kollektief siteWillem Breuker interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breuker, Willem 1944 births 2010 deaths Musicians from Amsterdam Avant-garde jazz musicians Bass clarinetists Clarinet Contrast members Composers for carillon Deaths from lung cancer in the Netherlands Dutch composers Dutch jazz bandleaders Dutch jazz saxophonists Globe Unity Orchestra members ICP Orchestra members Knights of the Order of the Netherlands Lion Male jazz musicians Male saxophonists 20th-century saxophonists