Who is Louis Andriessen?

Louis Andriessen is one of the most distinctive and influential composers working today. Drawing on a diverse range of influences from Bach, Stravinsky, be-bop jazz, Indonesian Gamelan, funk and R&B, he has constantly sought to break down the barriers between 'high' and 'low' culture in his music to fashion something gritty, powerful and unique. His left-wing politics and anti-establishment stance make him a hero to composers and musicians from all over the world, many of whom have flocked to his native Amsterdam for study. Over 40 years, he has steadily build up an impressive list of works, many of which challenge conventional ideas about what music is, and what it can do.

Andriessen was born in 1939 into a musical family: his father, uncle and elder brother were all composers. From them, he learned to admire for the works of J.S. Bach and Igor Stravinsky which – along with the jazz and be-bop he listened to on the radio as a teenager – have remained his most important influences.

As a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Andriessen studied composition with Kees van Baaren, one of the first Dutch composers to write serial or 'twelve-tone' music. After graduating in 1962, Andriessen went to study with the Italian composer Luciano Berio, whose works combined strict serial techniques with a characteristically Italian lyricism and feeling for instrumental colour, and which often have a strong dramatic element, even in purely instrumental pieces.

Andriessen's music from this period (pieces include Anachronie I and The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven for Promenade Orchestra and Ice-Cream Bell) combines avant-garde techniques with irreverent quotation from diverse musical styles, following the example of American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954), whose music was only just becoming well-known in Europe.

But on returning to Amsterdam, Andriessen encountered events that were to have a decisive effect on his musical thinking.