Jeroen van Vliet – piano-solo
Performing solo is a special event. For a piano-player the stakes seem high: so many beautiful music by so many incredible pianists has 'seen the light' – it's impossible to even consider to compete.
So in order to allow myself to perform and record solo I know I need to be aware that it's not about competing (it never is), but about the personal story, the inner music, my own ideas, and the experiment.
My first attempt was my solo-recording in 1995, resulting into the cd 'Who's Afraid'. It was a great adventure to make an appointment with the world-famous Jan Erik Kongshaug at the Rainbow Studio in Oslo, Norway, to fly there with my friend and producer Eric van der Westen, and to play that incredible Steinway-grand for one single day.
That album influenced my own musical career up till today, it pointed a way in esthetics, improvisation, imagery, composition.
Although since then my focus has been on many groups and projects over the years, my love for solo-performing never faded. New ideas are on their way to pick it up again.
Press about album ‘Who’s Afraid’:
Frank van Herk, De Volkskrant
Van Vliet constantly convinces with great control of timing and sound and beautiful, subtle played melodic lines
Gwen Ansell, Mail & Guardian South Africa
An hour of fragile beautiful stuff - who cares about genre?
Bart van Ratingen, Jazz Magazine
Van Vliet produces beautiful weighed miniatures, a kind of musical haiku’s – quiet and lyrical