Curiculum Vitae - Wouter van Bemmel

Wouter van Bemmel was born on 22nd September 1953. He has been a professional trumpet player since 1978 and was active in music improvisation classes for many years (including Buitenkunst and Scapino Ballet). Wouter has performed several times as a jazz musician at many festivals, including the world renowned North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam. As an arranger he has worked with e.g. “Orchestra of Broken Dreams” and then went on to work for feature films, like "Abel" (Alex van Warmerdam) and "Han de Wit gaat in ontwikkelingshulp", as well as for TV-tunes and commercials.
 
From 1990 onwards Wouter became increasingly interested and more focussed on composing music for films. It was with the Dadaist, jazz screenplay by Paul van Ostaijen in "De Jazz van het Bankroet”, that all of Wouter’s passions came together as one – jazz, film, improvisation and affinity with music theatre.
 
Over the last 25 years he has composed many scores, in a wide variety of styles, for TV-series, feature films, documentaries, corporate images, theater, modern dance, educational series, commercials and animation movies. The influence of years of experience on stage with (partly) improvised music, combined with passion for late-romantic composers and folkloristic music from all over the world, leads often to dramatic scores, together with on-screen improvised musical lines. Wouter has also been a guest professor in film music and the Netherlands Film and Television Academy since 2003. 


High school:Barleaus Gymnasium, studied biologie at the "Universiteit van Amsterdam".
At the same time active as trumpet-player (and as bass-player) in a wide variety of groups and styles, o.a..:

Pop-music :
"Shark","De combo de nachtkaars","Paolo Passionato and the Pennies from Heaven",
"De Houseband", with many TV-shows, LP-recordings and tours (o.a. Germany and Argentine),"De Dijk".

Classical music :
the ASKO-ensemble, street-orchestra's like "Jan Mobiel" and "Overlast".

South American music :
"Big Bamboo Party Time Calypso Band", "Salsa d'Amsterdam","Bess"(touring to Curacao and Cuba),"Venus I"(while living in Paris),"Trio Tamicos"(still perforoming with).

Entertainment-music :
the orchestra "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (also on tour in Germany and Belgium), wrote various arrangements, the orchestra won the dutch music award: "Edison" for the CD "It's the talk of the town".

Jazz:
"Bigi Futu""Future Shock" (live on many festivals, o.a.in Djakarta and two times the North Sea Jazz Festival),"Sambra","JC Tans & his Rockets","Vera Vingerhoeds and the Lazy Bones","I Compani" (a.o. 1998 and 2000 on the North Sea Jazz Festival).
Berlin Jazz Festival 2006 : solo-performance (on trumpet) with movie (The Bankrupt Jazz)

2010-2013 : Live tour with "De Bankroet Jazz Band", performing live with 9-piece band with movie based on script by Paul van Ostaijen.

The influence of years of experience on stage with (partly) improvised music, combined with passion for late-romantic composers and folkoristic music from all over the world, leads often to dramatic scores, together with on-screen improvised musical lines.

Still performing live with o.a. Grupo Tamicos (Cuban Music) and The Bankrupt Jazz Band,a 9-piece jazz ensemble including multi-instrumentalists and bruitists.
2011-2013: writing for and performing in Evi de Jean's "Melodie van een reiziger" playing bass, trumpets, seashell, harmonium a.o.(2011-2013) together with Michel Mulder and Gerrit de Boer.
Initiated the DADAFONIA project in 2014. (www.dadafonia.nl)