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I am Willem, a Marimba soloist, drum kit performer and teacher, and all round percussionist. I was always interested in drumming at a young age. When I was very little I could not stop drumming on pots and pans in the kitchen! I then received a drum kit for Christmas when I was seven years old and started lessons with Bert Schilperoort. I continued with Bert for many years, who was and still is a true inspiration to me. For many years I also gained experience of playing in percussion groups led by Cambridgeshire Music's Mark Aldous.  I also studied Tuned Percussion under expert teacher Mark Aldous. I was then taught by Belgium solo percussionist Professor Jessica Ryckewaert. I recently graduated from Leeds College of Music with a first class honours as well as the The Rotary Club of Leeds Cooke-Webster Prize earned from achieving the highest mark (95%) in my end of year recital. I currently work in special needs education striving to create a model to use music to help children develop their skills in both music and other subjects. 

I also run projects throughout the year including my rock school Cambridgerocks.com, coorporate enterainent (seen in musical events)  and percussion groups working on varied music around the globe. 


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Repertoire


I enjoy playing many different styles of music such as Classical, Jazz, Rock, Reggae, Pop, Metal, Latin and others.

My repertoire includes

Orchestra
Timpani - Noyes Fludde, Mars (Holst). Beethoven's 6th, 7th and 8th and 5th symphonies, Coriolan Overture, Haydn Symphonie 104, Shubert the Great,  Weber Der Freizchutz Overture.
Solo Timpani -
Tangents - James Campbell
Timps and Tape- Jan Bradley 
Xylophone - An American in Paris
Glockenspiel - The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Vibraphone - Out of Africa, The Planets, Pictures at an Exhibition. 
Orchestral Bells - Also Sprach Zarathustra
Taxi horns- American in Paris
Snare drum - Scheherazade
Solo Snare drum -
American Suite - Guy G Geauthreux. 
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Solo
Marimba repetoire including:
Concerto with orchestra - Ney Rosauro

Yellow after the rain- Mitchell Peters
Marimba Flamenca- Alice Gomez
Little Windows- Keiko Abe
Rhythm Song- Paul Smadbech
Libertango- Eric Sammut
A Cricket Sang and Set the Sun- Blake Tyson
Rain Dance- Alice Gomez
Hombre D'Aout- Eric sammut
Flight of the Bumblebee- Rimsky Korsakov
Variations on Porgy and Bess - Eric Sammut
Astral Dance - Gordon Stout
Strive to be Happy- Ivan Trevino

Multi-Percussion solos:
Canned Heat - Eckhard Kopetski.
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​Marimba and Percussion Duos
​Catching Shadows- Ivan Trevino
Insomnia - Cody Holmes
Blue Motion - Stephen Whibley
Tocatta - Andreas Kopel
Digga-Deegot- Dave Jarvis
Quiver- Damien Harron 


Vibraphone repertoire:
Bee, Lila- Emmanuel Sejourne
Skyway, Mysterious-  Rudd Wiener

As well as many other pieces!

Shows
Drum Kit - Oh What a Lovely War, The Wizard of Oz
Drum kit - Turn of the screw 

Timpani- Noah's flood
Timpani and percussion- Les Miserables 
Timpani- Beggars opera
Percussion - La Boheme with Leeds youth opera. 


Popular
Xylophone - TV and film theme tunes
Drum Kit - band work









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 Further orchestras and ensembles:

I have also performed in many orchestras such as

The Cambridge Sinfonietta

The Cambridge Heidelberg Montpelier Orchestra (CHMYO), under conductors from France, Germany and England

The Cambridge Graduate Orchestra (where we performed the lengthy Mahler 6).

The Cambridgeshire County Youth Orchestra 

I currently play in a variety of ensembles in Leeds college of music including Chamber Orchestra, wind band and New music collective as well as performing with orchestras outside of college including the Picadilly and Leodian Symphony Orchestras. 

​I also perform with the Hatfield band in Brass band competitions around the UK and recently won the Huddersfield areas moving into the champion section.  

I am also the second half of In-Sync percussion duo who are a new and exciting percussion group aiming to tour around the Uk in the future. 



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