- ANNETTE KRUISBRINK -

ABOUT:

Annette Kruisbrink is a Dutch classical guitarist and composer born in Amsterdam in 1958. Today she is considered one of the most influential and important composers of the 21st century. Growing up with music in the home, she used to listen to her mother play classical piano pieces as a child and even started playing the piano. It was at age 13 when a neighbor showed her a steel-stringed guitar that she fell in love with the instrument. With serval awards and CDs, Kruisbrink has made her mark on the music world. She studied at the Zwolle Conservatory under Pieter van der Staak, and in the early 90s, she studied composition with Alex Manassen. Her composition style is undefinable and can be best described as “modern” as it truly varies in instrumentation, style, form, and genre. And although her main performance instrument is guitar, Kruisbrink has written several pieces for other instruments and even put out an album titled “Cirex” which is classical guitar and double bass and is actually performed by her and her brother. Kruisbirnk describes her style and writing process as, “Maybe all these impressions are still inside me and do come out in a transformed way. It depends on whom I am writing for, on the level of the performer(s), on the length of the piece, in what mood I am etcetera, and in what style I'll write” (Thangjam). Annette Kruisbrink provides a modern touch to composition with a quick and harmonically innovative repertoire, with loads of open strings and hammer-ons and pull-offs to create a beautifully layered sound to her music.

What sticks out the most to me about Kruisbrink is the way she is so renowned in a male-dominated field. She is one of the very few female composers of the guitar world and has made a name to herself and can be considered one of the most influential composers of the 21st century. As a female guitar player myself, it was hard to think I had never played much music written by women before, and a majority of my repertoire was filled by men composers, let alone any modern pieces that strayed away from the Classical or Romantic period, so getting to dive into Kruisbrink was a blessing and eye-opening for future repertoire.

WORK:

With 11 albums in her discography, Kruisbrink has developed a unique sound over the span of her career. Because of her new-aged or modern style of composing, most of her pieces are short in length, with some of her pieces lasting about 30 seconds. Each piece averages between 2-3 minutes with most of her time lengths written into the score. Some of my personal favorite pieces by her are her Spring Suites. These collections of compositions last about 15 minutes and while they are short in length they are high in energy. In her writing, Krisbrink tends to use a lot of open strings, to give the pieces a fuller and more open sound. In the first movement, "Spring Suite I: Nature Awakens", she uses the higher strings to create a base arpeggio and adjacent strings as the main melody line. The timing of these pitches almost relates to church bells with the long sustain and suddenness. It mimics the theme of Spring, giving the emotion of new life and awakening as the season begins. The harmonic development of the piece is reminiscent of a Villa Lobos Etude with the dissonant harmony, but a dissonance that is kind enough to the ear. The rest of the suite follows the other seasons, giving contrast to each season in tone, harmony, and tempo.

A lot of Kruisbrink's pieces tend to be in E minor, which is one of the most guitar-friendly keys for fingering and overall harmonic structure. In the piece “Quiet Song” of her album “Knock Before You Enter” Kruisbrink takes advantage of the easy guitar key to use open strings, creating a pedal tone much like a piano. This creates sustain on an instrument that really doesn’t have a lot of natural sustain. This piece is perfect for a study piece or a warm-up because of the handshapes needed to play the piece, much like an exercise or Etude. The ending of the piece never resolves as it ends on a V chord, leaving it hanging in the air, again much like a Villa Lobos Etude. The openness of the harmony gives the piece life and room to breathe making it a perfect performance piece in a large hall.

GALLERY:

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Annette Kruisbrink, http://www.annettekruisbrink.nl/.

Thangjam , Poireinganba ]. “CG+, Vol.2 (9/15): Featuring Guitarist/Composer Annette Kruisbrink .” CLASSICAL GUITAR AUGMENTED (CG+), 3 Sept. 2015, https://classicalguitaraugmented.wordpress.com/tag/interview/.