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Passion for Percussion

Federation

Arthur van der Drift talks about his time in Eindhoven, his memories of the Federation, and his new job in Rotterdam

WFIMC: Tell us a bit about your past…. When did you start working for Tromp?

Arthur van der Drift: I worked for Tromp for exactly 12 years, actually 12 years minus 2 weeks. November 2011, I came to work here. And right when I started, there was talk about holding a General Assembly in ´s-Hertogenbosch, together with Utrecht and Eindhoven. So the World Federation was part of my job from the very beginning, even though I heard of them before: When I worked for the Gaudeamus Contemporary Music Center and its Contemporary Music week. They also have a competition for composition, so I tried to get some information in the 1990s about membership in the World Federation. But for Gaudeamus, contemporary music is more important, so we chose to continue our membership in the ISCM instead. 
But then I came to Tromp and was happy to join the network!

Tromp was a member already at that time?

It had started in 2007, actually, and I think it was really beneficial for Holland to organize and host the General Assembly, but also to be part of the Federation in the sense of bilateral meetings, exchange with various competitions, and also to have the trademark “WFIMC”, which is very important politically. If you apply for subsidies, it is essential that your competition is recognized by this international network. And you can prove that you´re recognized because there are thresholds and requirements. So over all its very important to use the recognition for branding purposes marketing purposes, but also for getting government funding.

at the General Assembly in Tongyeong, South Korea, 2014

at the General Assembly in Montreal, 2017

with Fiona Sinclair at the General Assembly in Hamamatsu, Japan 2023

Do you have any memories of the GA in ´s-Hertogenbosch? Who were you in touch with at the time?

Already before I started at Tromp, I met Rob Hilberink, because he was my predecessor at Tromp. At the time, he used to work both at the Liszt and at IVC. Then I started to have meetings with Annett Andriesen to prepare the Assembly, together with Quinten Peelen and Rob Hilberink. They were the first competition managers I met. Then everyone came to Netherlands, and I became part of the family. One of the first people I met and had some beers together was Jacques Marquis, who was still working for Montreal at the time. 
It was a fun assembly- we visited Utrecht for concerts and museums, and there was an excursion to Amsterdam and the windmills around the city. It proved to be very popular!

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with Florian Riem, Ivan van Kalmthout, and Rob Hilberink in October 2023

When you started Tromp, was there only percussion? Or did it still have other disciplines?

In 2011, there was “only” percussion left. Tromp was founded by Theo Tromp in 1970, who had retired from Phillips Company in Eindhoven. He founded the Biennale and also a national music competition, beginning with violin. Emmy Verhey was its first winner. The competition was held every two years, alternating many instruments: piano, woodwinds, trumpet. Trumpet because it was so close to his name “Tromp”.  Then, from 2000 to 2010, it was alternating between percussion and string quartet, and from 2010 percussion only. The main reason behind this was the general lack of percussion competitions: besides ARD, Geneva, and of course Luxemburg, there are hardly any alround-percussion competitions. The other thing is that Muziekgebouw Eindhoven has a percussion festival, with lots of variety and many possibilities to reach audiences. Much easier than with a chamber music festival.

Are you yourself a percussion player?

No, I am not. I play some piano for myself, but not in public. I am really a musicologist. In Holland, you can study musicology without being able to play an instrument. But I participated in many masterclasses and workshops organized by Tromp, so I know quite a bit about percussion. It´s a very nice instrument and very accessible. Very easy to start with, I would say!

You have quite an interest in new music, right? Otherwise you would not have become Secretary General of the ISCM. 

That was really because of Gaudeamus. I was always involved in contemporary music there. We did a performance competition there as well, so I knew many players focusing on contemporary repertoire. ISCM was one of the major tools for the festival of bringing contemporary music from all corners of the world into the spotlight, and so, when my predecessor Henk Heuvelmans resigned at ISCM, he asked me to continue. I was appointed and stayed for eight years as Secretary General.

Soon, you will go to Rotterdam. What will be your position at the Rotterdam Philharmonic?

I will be artistic planner (which means there is also an artistic director). Together, we will develop the programming in the near and far future, and to solve all the day-to-day problems of the orchestra: players and replacements, rosters, music library. But all of it is linked to performance, to concerts, and to music- classical music- and that´s the core of where I come from. I might do a bit of contemporary music, but that´s not a main task. We will need many soloists and players, and I think my connection to the World Federation will be very beneficial in that respect.

Rotterdam Phil is also part of the Rotterdam Conducting Competition. So you won´t be completely out of touch with the federation, right?

Right. I won´t be completely gone. I am always available for the questions and problems successors might have, and I will certainly look at the competitions and stay in touch. I am very interested in the future, in how competitions develop, and in new laureates of course.

But I really want to emphasize once more- for me the federation was always important. You can learn so much from others- by meeting colleagues privately and personally, by learning about their struggles and problems, by listening to their experiences. Investing in the network is very important, and therefore I will certainly stay in touch with the World Federation.

 

©WFIMC 2023/FR