"Fie Schouten, born in Amsterdam and still living there, performs in various formations at many different podia and festivals. She has performed all over the world and is playing on all the clarinets with a warm preference for the low ones.

Chamber music and Solo

As a specialist in performing new music, she can be heard extensively as a soloist and in chamber music formations, oa with cellists Katharina Gross, Eva van de Poll, pianist Keiko Shichijo, bass clarinettist Jelte Althuis, accordionist Marko Kassl, harpsichordist Goska Isphording and percussionist Tatiana Koleva. She also performs with improvisers: pianist Guus Janssen, cellist Vincent Courtois, baritonsax Giuseppe Doronzo, double bass Wilbert de Joode.

Many new pieces are written for and premiered by her groups by composers with very diverse styles and of very different backgrounds and nationalities. Free improvisation appears in many of the pieces. Fie Schouten initiated and leads together with Tobias Klein the Basklarinet Festijn, with four editions: 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020-2022.

Fie Schouten is initiatior and curator (together with composer Aspasia Nasopoulou) of the series for contemporary chambermusic Nieuwe Noten Amsterdam, at Plein Theater

Working with composers

Fie Schouten workes together with composers since her studies. She learned to enjoy this collaboration from former teacher Harry Sparnaay, now she teaches the younger generation and is still working with composers of all over the world, young and old(er). About 100 compositions were written for Schouten and her ensembles and she performed them all.Teaching

Schouten is professor bass clarinet at the Prince Claus Conservatory Groningen. She was guest-professor bass clarinet at Codarts Rotterdam and was visiting professor at conservatoires in Vienna, Tallinn, Chicago, Jerusalem. She teaches the next to the bass clarinet, the bassethorn, contrabass clarinet, contemporary techniques, methodology, she conducts the studentensemble of the conservatoire performing contempoary music and regularly invites composers to work with the studentperformers.Since 2017 she is coordinating the elective Sustainable Performance, where the physical and mental health is the main topic and led by different specialists.Also Schouten is teaching privately, mainly young professionals or coaching composers. She was jurymember in 2018 during Gaudeamus Muziekweek for the Tera de Marez Oyens (composition) Price.

Awards and CDs

In 2019 Fie Schouten received 1st Nieuw Geneco (composers association) Fair Practice Compositioncommission Award for her impact on the musicscene in the Netherlands, an inspiration for many and with attention for Fair Practice.She produced nine CD's. The latest ones are called figures (2022) and Nut (2021) which contain chamber music for (contra)bass clarinet; Monologues 2020 (2021) is a solo CD; Nature (2020) contains chambermusic for (bass) clarinet. Two CD's are released at ATTACCA, Chambery (2018) with chambermusic for bass clarinet and her solo CD Ladder of Escape 11. Her other cd's 'Of Villages and Spaces' (KAIDA 2005), 'Amsterdam, de wereld' (To be Sung 2007) and 'Spielzeug' (bklar,acc,trb 2009) came out at Karnatic Lab Records. Schouten's duo Kaida received the Tera de Marez Oyens Prijs in 2002 (NL). It won prize for best impro at the International Gaudeamus Competition (NL'03), best windensemble at 13th International Chambermusic Competition Illzach (F'03).

Stockhausen

From 2008 to 2018 Fie Schouten performed many works by Karlheinz Stockhausen.Fie played the solistic part as one of the 'Clownesque Swallows' in MICHAELS REISE um die Erde many times - mostly with the German Ensemble MusikFabrik and in regie of La Fura dels Baus, but also with the Dutch ASKO-Schonberg ensemble and the French Ensemble Le Balcon.She performed LICHT-BILDER (SONNTAG aus LICHT) in the production of musikFabrik/Oper Köln in 2011; MICHAELION (MITTWOCH aus LICHT) at the London 2012 Festival with the Birmingham Opera Company; HARMONIEN (KLANG) oa at the MusikTriennale Köln; BASSETSU TRIO (MITTWOCH aus LICHT) and ROTARY quintet at the Festival d'Automne Paris 2013/2014; BASSETSU solo and TIERKREIS.

Ensembles, orchestras

Fie Schouten collaborates with the German Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2008. She was guestmusician in Orkest de Volharding, Ensemble Mulitfoon. She played as a guest with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, ASKO-Schönberg Ensemble, Insomnio Ensemble, Het Balletorkest, Noord-Nederlands Orkest.

Study

She studied at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where she received her Bachelor Diplomas in clarinet and bassclarinet and a Masters Degree in bassclarinet with Harry Sparnaay, Tom Sieuwerts, and Herman Braune. She has participated in masterclasses in Austria (Impuls), Germany (Darmstadt) and France (Pablo Casals Festival), where she had lessons with clarinettists Ernesto Molinari, Michel Lethiec.

Other activities

Fie was during 3 years (2016-2019) Advisor at the Amsterdam Art Council, AFK. She is a member of Kunstenbond and Bimpro. She is teaching Professional Writing at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, faculty Business and Economy since 2018."

"Vincent Courtois (born 21 March 1968) is a French jazz cellist.

Courtois studied classical cello at the Conservatory of Aubervilliers, first with Erwan Fauré, and then with Roland Pidoux and Frédéric Lodéon. He also played Didier Levallet and Dominique Pifarély, and since 1988 in bandslead by Christian Escoudé and Didier Levallet ("Swing String System") in Paris. In addition he started his own quartet in 1990, releasing his debut solo album Cello News the same year.

He played in the duo with Martial Solal from 1993, with Julien Lourau in "Pendulum Quartet", with Franck Tortiller in the band "Tukish Blend" and the trio "Zebra 3", and in addition he played with Xavier Desandre Navarre. He has also contributed to the album Marvellous (1994) with Michel Petrucciani, Tony Williams and Dave Holland.

In 1995 Courtois performed his first solo concerts, he played within François Corneloup's Septett, and collaborated with Louis Sclavis making music for film and theatre. He also recorded two albums with the quintet of Rabih Abou-Khalil, and in 1998 he participated in an ensemble led by Pierre Favre, and a trio with Yves Robert. In 2000he was in three trio constellations, in 2002 a quintet played at the festival "Banlieues Bleues", and in a trio with Ellery Eskelin and Sylvie Courvoisier.

In 2005 Courtois joined Michele Rabbia and Marilyn Crispell to play in Bamako with his own trio. He was involved with Henri Texiers in recording the music to the movie Holy Lola by Bertrand Tavernier. In 2006 he initiated a new quartet with Jeanne Lagt, Marc Baron and François Merville. In 2008 he released the album L' homme avion with Ze Jam Afane."

"Guus Janssen (1951) studied piano and composition at the Sweelinck Academy of Music in Amsterdam. His music is difficult to categorize. It can be a composed improvisation (Brake for pianosolo) or an improvised composition (parts from his Violin Concerto or his opera Noach). Music is like life itself, sometimes it asks for fast decisions and sometimes it needs to be thought over a lot.

As a pianist and harpsichordist he performed in various groupings with musicians from John Zorn to Gidon Kremer. Since the early 1980's he has led his own ensembles, ranging from pianotrios to 11 piece band and opera orchestra.

As a soloist, playing mainly his own compositions and improvisations, he has appeared at a lot of international festivals. In addition he has performed with many of the leading Dutch ensembles and orchestras.

Janssen's achievements in the field of jazz and improvised music have been widely acclaimed. It was for them that he received the Boy Edgar Award, 1981.

His compositions, quite apart from the pieces written for the Janssen ensembles, range from piano music and string quartet to symphonic work; they have been widely played by, amongst others, the Kronos Quartet, the Schönberg Ensemble, the Ebony Band and the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest.

In recognition of his standing and quality as a composer, Janssen won the Matthijs Vermeulen Award, 1984.

So far Janssen has composed four opera' s in collaboration with Friso Haverkamp: 'Faust's Licht' (1988/1993), 'Noach' (1994), 'Hier' (2000) and 'Blue, a Pinnocchio in reverse' (2010

In 2015 he composed the opera 'Koeien operamisha' for the ICP Orchestra with a libretto by Cherry Duyns, both music and texts base don material of Misha Mengelberg. The opera had its premiere in the Holland Festival followed by a very well received tour along dutch theatres.

In 2012 Janssen was honoured with the prestigious Johan Wagenaar Award for his whole oeuvre and in 2015 he received the 'Art Award' from the Foundation Adriaan Roland Holst.

The jury of the latter praises the flexibility of Janssen as improviser, his enthusiasm as composer and performing musician and his curiosity to new froms of music and combination of idioms."

"As lover of unexplored space , border crossing sounds, Giuseppe focuses his research on the baritone saxophone, aiming to explore a vocabulary that goes through his background in contemporary classical music , jazz improvisation and his interest for non-western music.

Giuseppe (1987) was born in Barletta, a very old town on the Adriatic coast of Puglia, Italy.

Recently Giuseppe has been awarded as "Music Revelation 2018" in the International Jazz critic pool "El Intruso" by All About Jazz Journalist Karl Ackermann.

He began studying classical saxophone at the "N. Piccinni" Conservatory in Bari, where he graduated in 2009.In 2011 he obtained "Master on Saxophone" in classical contemporary music, as soloist at the "N.Rota" Conservatory in Monopoli.In 2012 he moved in Holland to study jazz, at Prins Claus Conservatory in Groningen, with Michael Moore, Miguel Martinez, Kurt Weiss, Steve Altenberg, David Berkman, Robin Eubanks, Alex Sipiagin, Freddie Bryant, where he graduated Cum Laude in 2015.

In 2015 he recorded a solo piece for the dutch dancer and choreographer Cora Bos-Kroese titled "Two ways towards", that was performed at the New York University (NYC).

He can be seen among his current projects as Solo, Falga, AVA Trio,Aterraterr, Michael Moore Bigtet, All Ellington,Raoul van Der Weide XPE.

Giuseppe's work has been supported by grants from the Sena Fund and Performing Art Fund of The Netherlands.

He has been giving music workshops in several spaces and institutions in Europe together with the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Stedelijke Muziekschool (The Netherlands), Arkestra Lab foundation (Italy), Marmara University of Arts (Turkey).He has worked with creative artists covering various fields of the national and international art including:Michael Moore, Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Mariem Hassan, Vince Mendoza,Han Bennink, NDR Big Band, João Bosco, Kiko Freitas, Robin Eubanks, Paolo Fresu, Tullio De Piscopo, Taylor Ho Bynum, Steve Potts,Roberto Ottaviano,Ralph Alessi,Gianni Lenoci, Tiziana Ghiglioni, Felice Mezzina,Lothar Sthal, Jens Pollheide, Irene Aebi Lacy, Tiziano Tononi, Daniele Cavallanti, Carlo Actis Dato, Benjamin Herman, Jim Black.

He has played in venues and festivals including OCT LOFT Jazz Festival, Xihu Festival, Shanghai World Music Festival (China); Vahdat Hall (Iran), Bimhuis, Gaudeamus Muziek Week Festival, Doek Festival, Lantaren Venster, North Sea Jazz Festival, Zomer Jazz Fiets Tour Festival (The Netherlands); Novosadski Jazz Festival (Serbia); Sant'Anna Arresi Jazz Festival 2018, Reggia della Venaria (Italy); Die Aegidien church, NDR Funkhaus (Germany); Meutiviti Festival (Denmark); Ljubliana Jazz Festival (Slovenia) and many others. He has been broadcast in various places, including on VPRO, RAI Radio 3, NPO 1, NPO4."