Schipper’s education [home]
[page down]
Barend Schipper followed his studies of musical
composition and orchestration with composer conductor
Willem Frederik Bon, who
was a regular composer and conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Radio
Philharmonic Orchestra. He completed his studies in one and a half year from
the first start in stead of the usual twelve to fifteen years.
Barend kept on studying with Bon of course, realizing he had still a lot to
learn.
In stead of composition Schipper now studied and performed orchestra conducting with Bon, while he remained studying as main
topics piano and singing with former soloists of the Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra: Mrs. M. Stroo and Mrs. H. Verkley.
All together he studied with five different
conservatory piano teachers, the last, longest and perhaps most notable of them
Mrs. Maria Stroo [1920-2001], who
was a regular soloist with the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and formed a duo with the
concertmasters of this orchestra, Theo
Olof and Victor Liberman.
Maria Stroo stated about Schippers pianist
gifts: “a fantastic technique and a beautiful personal tone, with a rare
capacity for coloring and lyricism”.
He then served his post graduate apprenticeship with the European
leading composer Jacqueline Fontyn in her home
near Brussels who wrote about Barend Schipper:
“I had the pleasure to meet Barend Schipper this year
1985. He appeared to me as a very talented and fully motivated young composer.
His feeling for color– harmonic and instrumental- as well as his research for a
personal musical language are quite remarkable. I think he may be considered as
a serious and very promising creator.” [page down]
Hereafter he started his post graduate apprenticeship
with European renowned composer prof. dr. Einojuhani Rautavaara in
Helsinki.
Schipper chose to study with Rautavaara
because Finland knows a tradition of highly esteemed tonal composing (Finnish operas, also from Sallinen and Kokkonen had
their premieres regularly in the opera house of Santa Fe, U.S.A.).
Rautavaara, who is apart from
European composer also a Doctor in music sciences, could place Schipper’s new
ideas in a wider perspective. Only nowadays tonal composing is fully recognized
as an integrated part of contemporary composing. Cultural Finland was in this
respect ahead of the other European countries and could therefore contribute to
Schipper’s developments.
The Sibelius Academy is a university
with some 2000 students, with a composition faculty of 150 students. A graduate
student from the Sibelius Academy could enter Moscow conservatory without
entrance exam.
Music education is a national item in Finland and Mr.
Rautavaara functioned as the ambassador of the Academy, directly under the
minister of culture.
Rautavaara was interested in Schipper’s ideas and
search for a rebirth of Romantic and classical music. Dr. Rautavaara offered
Schipper a guest lectureship on his
avant-garde ideas about new tonal classical and Romantic music as a follow up
of (post)modernism to the professors, teachers and students of the university
Sibelius Academy.
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