Thom de Klerk - The Netherlands Wind Ensemble

The Netherlands Wind Ensemble

Besides being a bassoon player, bassoon maker and reed maker Thom de Klerk also was a music teacher at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Sweelinck Academy. He was a teacher of, of course, the bassoon and also of the ensemble class. In this last capacity he was able to select the best students, among others Joep Terweij (bassoon), Martine Bakker (flute), George Pieterson (clarinet), Jaap Verhaar (French horn) and Edo de Waart (oboe). With these students he founded the Aulos Wind Ensemble, a group he expounded in 1959 and renamed the Netherlands Wind Ensemble.

Being the founder, conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble Thom de Klerk has made ground-breaking achievements in rediscovering manuscripts the great composers wrote for wind ensembles and that were thought lost or that were forgotten over time. To this end he travelled the world to research the music libraries. He also retreaded many works for string ensembles to fit the requirements of a wind ensemble. Until the foundation of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble wind ensembles were a rarity, also worldwide. In the Netherlands only the Concertgebouw Quartet and Quintet existed, both of which de Klerk was the bassoonist. It was de Klerk’s aim with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble to create the wind-counterpart of the world famous Italian string chamber orchestra I Musici which was founded seven years earlier. Within a relative short period of time under the artistic direction of Thom de Klerk the Netherlands Wind Ensemble achieved prominent international acclaim.

In the time frame he considered ending his work for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra to be able to dedicate all of his energy to music - and archive research and the artistic - and music direction of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, at fifty-four years old Thom de Klerk unexpectedly died.