Dick Raaijmakers, 1930-2013.
September 6, 2013 10:07 AM Subscribe
Pioneering Dutch electronic/tape composer Dick Raaijmakers has died. Raaijmakers was an early adopter of electronic technology for music production, and his work in the field expanded far beyond the laboratory to include film, theater, installations and visual art, and literature. He wrote for orchestras, percussion ensembles, educational and industrial films, Satie-inspired ambient and background environments, and unorthodox "musical" objects such as tractors and bicycles. He was also a noted essayist and author on new concepts and applications related to sound.
Bernardus Franciscus Raaijmakers was born in Maastricht on September 1, 1930. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague before joining Royal Phillips Electronics Ltd. in Eindhoven, first as an apprentice in applied electronics and later (from 1954 to 1960) as an assistant in the burgeoning electro-acoustic laboratory with Dutch tape-music juggernauts such as Henk Badings, Tom Dissevelt, and Ton de Leeuw.
Raaijmakers enjoyed some wider success in October 1957 when his alter ego, Kid Baltan, released Song of the Second Moon in collaboration with Dissevelt. They went on to produce other short "popular" electro-acoustic works such as Night Train Blues (for three Ondes Martinots and piano), Electronic Boogie Woogie, and Colonel Bogey's March.
Raaijmakers' work at Phillips has since been commemorated in two deluxe reissues from the Basta label (best known for their Raymond Scott set, Manhattan Research Inc.): Popular Electronics and Complete Tape Music.
Raaijmakers became a professor of Electronic and Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague in 1966, and remained there until his retirement in 1995.
He died peacefully in his sleep, three days after his 83rd birthday, on Wednesday, September 4, 2013.
Read an exhaustive chronology of Raaijmakers' achievements.
More music:
The Ray-Makers (1957)
Mechanical Motion [as Kid Baltan] (1958)
Contrasts (Tweeklank) (1958)
Pianoforte (1960)
Ballad 'Erlkönig' (1966)
Intona (1992)
Bernardus Franciscus Raaijmakers was born in Maastricht on September 1, 1930. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague before joining Royal Phillips Electronics Ltd. in Eindhoven, first as an apprentice in applied electronics and later (from 1954 to 1960) as an assistant in the burgeoning electro-acoustic laboratory with Dutch tape-music juggernauts such as Henk Badings, Tom Dissevelt, and Ton de Leeuw.
Raaijmakers enjoyed some wider success in October 1957 when his alter ego, Kid Baltan, released Song of the Second Moon in collaboration with Dissevelt. They went on to produce other short "popular" electro-acoustic works such as Night Train Blues (for three Ondes Martinots and piano), Electronic Boogie Woogie, and Colonel Bogey's March.
Raaijmakers' work at Phillips has since been commemorated in two deluxe reissues from the Basta label (best known for their Raymond Scott set, Manhattan Research Inc.): Popular Electronics and Complete Tape Music.
Raaijmakers became a professor of Electronic and Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague in 1966, and remained there until his retirement in 1995.
He died peacefully in his sleep, three days after his 83rd birthday, on Wednesday, September 4, 2013.
Read an exhaustive chronology of Raaijmakers' achievements.
More music:
The Ray-Makers (1957)
Mechanical Motion [as Kid Baltan] (1958)
Contrasts (Tweeklank) (1958)
Pianoforte (1960)
Ballad 'Erlkönig' (1966)
Intona (1992)
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There is a weekly popular science TV program in Hungary, called Delta. The Song of the Second Moon was the music in the opening credits for almost 35 years. As a kid I was so scared watching this. The pictures, the music...
posted by bdz at 12:21 PM on September 6, 2013
There is a weekly popular science TV program in Hungary, called Delta. The Song of the Second Moon was the music in the opening credits for almost 35 years. As a kid I was so scared watching this. The pictures, the music...
posted by bdz at 12:21 PM on September 6, 2013
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Didn't know him, but I look forward to listening to all this.
posted by azarbayejani at 6:54 PM on September 6, 2013
Didn't know him, but I look forward to listening to all this.
posted by azarbayejani at 6:54 PM on September 6, 2013
I missed this post, was checking to see if it had really been not noted.
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posted by bongo_x at 5:26 PM on September 8, 2013
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posted by bongo_x at 5:26 PM on September 8, 2013
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