Michiel van der Meulen

loves thinking wondering learning making travelling meeting music Earth and those he loves

Life

Michiel van der Meulen was released into the world in 1969, from school in 1988 (… with his wife to be and a diploma), by the army in 1989 (… with a truck driver’s license and skills he fortunately never needed to rely on), and from university in 1999 (… with two more diplomas and skills he has relied on ever since). He works as a geologist for the Geological Survey of the Netherlands and is married with two children.

Music

After a life-long immersion in various modal idioms—during his upbringing, as a musician and as a traveller—Michiel found his musical voice at Labyrinth Musical Workshop in Crete, studying composition with Ross Daly. This is where he learned to shape the modes, rhythms, forms and phrasing he had been absorbing, especially those of the Ottoman classical and Eastern Mediterranean folk repertoires, into contemporary modal music, a cosmopolitan genre coined by Daly. Michiel’s oeuvre is turning into an ever more comprehensive reflection on his influences and personal musical journey, as also documented in the combined technical / biographic notes he writes to his albums. Michiel uses his oud and violin when composing, and plays a specially modified, microtonal Macedonian tambura in several of his recordings.

Cooperation

International – Ever since he started out at Labyrinth, Michiel has enjoyed the great privilege to not only learn from but also work with renowed musicians and technicians from that close-knit community:

• Ross Daly – musician, composer, founder and director of Labyrinth Musical Workshop | Erato
• Kelly Thoma – lyra player, composer | Erato
• Taxiarchis Georgoulis – oud player | Európe, Erato
• Manolis Kanakakis – kanun player, pianist, choir director | Pîrî Reis, Európe, Erato
• Vagelis Karipis – percussionist | Európe, Erato
• Marijia Katsouna – percussionist | Pîrî Reis, Európe, Erato
• Michalis Kouloumis – violinist, composer | Erato
• Harris Lambrakis – ney player, composer | Pîrî Reis, Európe, Erato
• Yorgos Mavromanolakis (†) – oud player, composer | Pîrî Reis
• Alexandros Papadimitrakis – oud player, lavta player | Erato
• Giorgos Papaioannou – violinist, composer | Pîrî Reis, Európe, Erato
• Nikos Papaioannou – cellist | Európe, Erato

Čalgija on TouMilou

It is hard to overstate the role Čalgija and the ensemble’s musical director Wouter Swets (1930–2016) played in building a Dutch audience for ‘world music’, in particular from the Balkans and Anatolia.

Wouter Swets has been called the Dutch Alan Lomax but perhaps it is more accurate to think of him as an equivalent of Ross Daly. It was Swets who drew Michiel’s father Albert to Balkan music, the closest match in Europe to the sounds of an early youth spent in the Dutch East Indies. It provided him a way out of the rather dire musical environment he had found himself in after moving to the Netherlands. Čalgija, in its 1960s line-up, was Albert’s first ensemble. Michiel has played and still plays with former Čalgija members, so it is fair to say that Swets shaped, albeit mostly indirectly, Michiel’s musical tastes and preferences.

Čalgija existed, in different line-ups, from the early 1960s till 1995, and then continued as Al Farabi till the mid-2000s. Swets was primarily active as a musician and researcher; his discography is comparitatively modest. Čalgija produced an untitled EP in the mid-1960s that was reisssued by TouMilou, an LP in 1978 and a CD in 1991. Ensemble Al Farabi released a CD in 2002.