biography

Sander Germanus (Amsterdam,1972) studied classical saxophone from 1988 until 1995 with Ed Bogaard at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where he finished his studies as a soloist cum laude with a distinction for artistic qualities. He began his music composition lessons with Peter-Jan Wagemans as his composition teacher and Klaas de Vries as his orchestration teacher in 1992 at the Conservatory of Rotterdam, where he finished his composition studies with an award in 1998. During 1994-1995 he also studied with Luc Van Hove at the Royal Flemish Music Conservatory at Antwerp. By invitation of De Nederlandse Opera he attended a master class with Pierre Boulez in 1995. In 1998 he won an incentive prize from the City of Amsterdam for his composition Adamsarchipel. He was admitted to the Orpheus Institute in Ghent in 1999, where he acquired his laureate diploma with his thesis on microtonal music in the spring of 2005. At this institute he joined several residential seminaries from Helmut Lachenmann and Jonathan Harvey among others. In 2000 he was nominated for the NPS Culture Prize on television for his quarter-tone composition Continental and reached the final. During the season 2001/2002 he was offered a stipend at the Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia of Bamberg, where he stayed for half a year to compose and to give lectures at the university and some grammar schools. In 2003 he composed a piece for Il Solisti del Vento in commissioned by the Festival of Flanders Antwerp. Since his composition Lunapark (2005-2006), which he wrote for Calefax Reed Quintet and the DoelenEnsemble, his 'microtonal' theory comes together with other inventions in terms of tempo and rhythm. From 2007 he is the artistic director of the Huygens-Fokker Foundation, Centre for Microtonal Music in Amsterdam. Since 2010, he is a lecturer in contemporary music at the master academy of the Lemmens Institute in Leuven (LUCA School of Arts). In 2012 his orchestral work Fetus' Voyage was premiered during the ZaterdagMatinee in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Sander Germanus composed music for several ensembles, i.a. the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Calefax Reed Quintet, Asko|Schönberg, Amstel Quartet, Il Solisti del Vento, Nieuw Ensemble, Quatuor Danel, Studio for New Music Ensemble, DoelenEnsemble, Residentie Orchestra, Percussion The Hague, Aurelia Saxophone Quartet and the North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra. His music has been performed in various countries and has been regularly broadcasted by radio and television. His composition for piano Beetje Precies and his Capriccio voor genoeg vioolsnaren (Capriccio for enough violin strings) for violin were both recorded on CD.

As a saxophone player, he performed with several orchestras and ensembles since 1990, including the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Holland, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchester, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Holland and The Netherlands Promenade Orchestra. From 1991 he played the soprano- and sopranino saxophone in the World Saxophone Orchestra and several other ensembles. From 1992 he participated in saxophone master classes of Jean-Marie Londeix, Claude Delangle (France), Ryo Noda (Japan) and Krzysztof Herder (Poland). His début as a saxophonesoloist came in 1998 with the Doelen Ensemble during the Gaudeamus International Music Week in Amsterdam.