Marike van Dijk

The Stereography Project

Dutch saxophonist/composer Marike van Dijk began playing jazz as a precocious 14 year old. She went on to study at the Rotterdam Conservatory from which she graduated (cum laude) in 2006. She continued her studies at the Amsterdam Conservatory, obtaining her master’s degree in jazz performance (cum laude). In 2009 Marike was nominated for the prestigious Dutch "Deloitte jazz award" and the "Amersfoort jazz talent award". JazzNL, a foundation for promoting young Dutch jazz talent, selected her as an "artist deserving wider recognition". In May 2013 she obtained her second masters degree, this time from New York University, for which she was awarded a full scholarship by the Dutch ‘Huygens Scholarship Programme’. A versatile musician, van Dijk has performed and toured with many ensembles; European Jazz Orchestra, Jazzmania Big Band, Konrad Koselleck Big Band, New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, as well as numerous smaller groups. Prior to moving to Australia in 2019, van Dijk worked as a research assistant at the Antwerp Royal Conservatoire (Belgium) and was part of the saxophone faculty at the Institut fur Music in Osnabrück, Germany for several years. Additionally, she taught workshops and classes at Codarts Rotterdam, Groningen Conservatory, Royal conservatory the Hague and Amsterdam Conservatory.

 Perhaps pianist/arranger Gil Goldstein puts it best when describing van Dijk’s music (specifically The Stereography Project), “van Dijk’s writing has an organic quality; balanced and seems to find ratios and combinations that are based in nature. I find her music very intuitive and feel that she has great honesty. This record will be just another step in a long career of composing.”

www.marikevandijk.com

Stranded marks van Dijk’s fourth recording to feature her compositions and her second album for Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records; to be released worldwide on September 22, 2023.

 An important part of the concept for Stranded was van Dijk’s exploration of open structures. She explains, “I needed a group of open-minded musicians that would be into collaborating and improvising quite freely. There’s a lot of space for the musicians to play around with and I needed musicians who would be comfortable with that, because I really wanted to create an environment for these artists to freely reveal themselves. I tried to write a balance of open structures and also a few compositions with more defined forms and information. In my work I always draw from different musical genres, as I think many from my generation of musicians do, and I utilize collaboration and improvisation as a way to connect players and ideas.”

 Van Dijk also needed an open mind, and as the album title, Stranded, hints at, the artist originally planned to spend a year to start her PhD in composition in Australia followed by travels to New York and Europe, and found herself marooned in subtropical Brisbane, the third city of Australia, during the Covid-19 Global Pandemic. Much of this music was composed and conceptualized during this time as part of her PhD, focused on collaborative practices and abstract composition techniques.

 Commissioned by the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2020 as the Festival’s annual commission, van Dijk’s concept for Stranded developed over the following two years until its delayed premiere at the Festival in 2022. During this time van Dijk had to use her imagination to remember and feel some semblance of the joy of performing with her friends and collaborators, and connecting with each other and the audience. Van Dijk elaborated, “with this music I tried to stay as close as possible to what it feels like to be part of a live performance: the album was recorded in a live setting and produced to give listeners the sensation of sitting on stage, right there, with us.”

 In terms of concept for the music and compositions, composing for this specific ensemble came to be central to Stranded. The musicians were chosen specifically for their musical personalities. Van Dijk said of this factor, “their personalities were a big influence on the whole process, not only during the performances, but during the composing process I was already imagining how the musicians would play the pieces and what that would sound like.”

The Stereography Project is a twelve-piece jazz group with string quartet led by van Dijk. This New York based group features young, creative, musically-powerfully individuals, all deeply rooted in the jazz tradition, and committed to furthering that tradition: Marike van Dijk (saxes/compositions), Ben van Gelder on bass clarinet/alto sax (Monk Competition semi-finalist), Alan Ferber on trombone (Grammy Nominee), Anna Webber on flute/tenor sax (Charlie parker award winner), Lucas Pino on clarinet/tenor sax (DownBeat Magazine award winner), and Sita Chay/Eli Speirs (violin), Eric Lemmon (viola), Amanda Gookin (vocals), Manuel Schmiedel (piano), Rick Rosato (bass), Mark Schilders (drums), Defne Sahin & Ruben Samama (vocals), Dan Pratt (conductor), John Davis (recording and mixing), Scott Hull (mastering) Van Dijk’s compositions mix contemporary classical music with jazz and improvisation. All compositions were inspired by images and music van Dijk experienced throughout her childhood in The Netherlands as well as her life in New York City; contrasting her experiences of spacious views of fields, forests and lakes with the ever changing, but non-stop energy, of New York City. Van Dijk’s highly narrative, compelling style of composing is best described as, "film music without the film".