ARNO BORNKAMP Dutch saxophonist Arno Bornkamp (1959) is the archetype of the modern virtuoso, feeling equally at home in traditional and contemporary repertoire. Hailed as a lyrical musician with a great sense of performance, Bornkamp studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam with Ed Bogaard and graduated in 1986 with the highest distinction.

He has won many awards, the ‘Silver Laurel of the Concertgebouw’ and the ‘Netherlands Music Prize’ among the most noteworthy. The latter enabled him to go abroad, studying in France with Daniel Deffayet and Jean-Marie Londeix, in Japan with Ryo Noda as well as working with composers as Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Since his 1982 solo debut in Rome, performing the ‘Concertino da Camera’ by Jacques Ibert, he has played more than 250 concerts with orchestras around the world, including the most important works from the saxophone repertoire in addition to new concerti written especially for him, such as the ‘Tallahatchie Concerto’ by Jacob TV.

In the year 2009 Bornkamp added 3 new works to his repertoire: ‘Trois Danses’ (orig. for oboe) by Frank Martin and 2 new saxophone concerto’s by Joey Roukens and Carlos Michans.

Chamber music is also a great love of Arno Bornkamp. He has a long-standing duo with pianist Ivo Janssen and is part of the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet (one of the world’s most acclaimed saxophone quartet), which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2008.

Arno Bornkamp’s many activities (including concerts, festivals, masterclasses, lectures) have taken him to many countries in Europe, the USA, the Far East and South America, but the highlight of his career took place closer to home: in the summer of 1996 he played with Ivo Janssen due to the Prinsengracht Concert in Amsterdam for an audience of more than 15.000 people.

The many CD’s he has made since 1990 since on various labels have garnered national and international praise. A remarkable project is a tryptich of CD’s on the Ottavo label: ‘The Classical Saxophone from a Historical Perspective’, covering three important periods in the history of the saxophone: the beginning period with works from around 1850 written for Adolphe Sax (‘Adolphe Sax Revisited’), the beginning of the 20th Century with impressionistic music (‘Boston-Paris, the Elisa Hall Collection’) and the years ’20 and ’30 in Berlin (‘Metropolis Berlin’).

His most recent CD-project was released by the Basta label in 2009: ‘Buku of Horn: Arno B. plays JacobTV’, a portrait of Dutch composer JacobTV. Arno Bornkamp is a renowned teacher, leading an international saxophone class at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In the summer he teaches the International Saxophone Masterclass in Laubach (Germany) and at the Université d’Eté Européenne pour saxophone in Gap (France).