ENGROSSED: Michiel Borstlap performing at European Jazz Festival Katara Qatar 2015. Photo by Umer Nangiana
By Umer Nangiana
Not just one, all three of them were soulful. And they were all improvised. The maestro just moved his fingers and transported the captivated hundreds in audience into a world of musical magic.
The connection the listeners had anticipated, did materialise. This was a scene from the magician, the Dutch pianist and composer, Michiel Borstlap’s crystalline clear piano tunes at the recent European Jazz Festival 2015 Qatar.
Absorbed, Borstlap would lift his head from above the keys only after the last of the notes from his minutes-long melodies had dissolved into thin air of the electric environment at the Katara Cultural Village venue.
Borstlap knows no other way but complete immersion into the sounds that his fingers generate from the soul of piano.
“I try to dive into it and reach [a place where] I can feel it when I play. I follow my soul,” the Dutch pianist told Community in a chat post-concert. And his soul, he said, was particularly touched with memories the moment he touched down in Qatar.
“It was a beautiful evening here. I felt emotional. It rekindled the memories. I had a very big project here in 2003,” says Borstlap. He had received a commission from the then Emir of Qatar to compose an opera “Ibn Sina” (Avicenna) about Arabian history, televised by Al Jazeera to 300 million viewers.
“I will never forget the time I spent here. And then to come back after all these years was really emotional for me. I could see one of the members of the royal family in the audience for whom I have great respect in my heart,” said the Dutch maestro.
He remembers when he arrived in Doha, for the Jazz Festival, it was night and he could only recognise a few landmarks. The rest was all new to him.
“I did not recognise anything. I saw the Marriott Hotel, the Corniche and then the Sheraton. The rest is from the sky and it is incredible,” says the artist. He praises the royal family of Qatar for being visionary and for developing the country in line with the demands of the future.
Recalling his time creating the opera, Borstlap says it was a very intense time for everyone. Everyone was committed to the success of the opera. Hoping that one day the making of opera returns to Qatar, Borstlap says the vision of HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser was to make it 60 percent Italian and 40 percent Arabic with 100 percent Arabic music.
Borstlap himself uses a blend of technology and improvisation to create and record his musical compositions.
He explained the differences between following a method and improvising. “The method is from the brain and the soulful is from here (touches heart). Sometimes you need to compose the mathematical piece. But sometimes it is also good to find some other things from your heart. I try to shift from to one to the other,” says the pianist. He encourages anyone who wants to play piano to play with their brains and fingers but to also not forget to listen to their souls.
“Because it was your soul, not your brain, that first urged you to play piano,” insists Borstlap. He was touched by the sound of piano at the age of 4 and instantly fell in love with it. Since then, it has been a romantic, honest love affair for him.
The maestro chose to play an oriental piece to set the mood at the European Jazz festival. “I do not really believe in genres or styles. It does not matter. What matters is what you are saying through that,” believes Borstlap. Just like people everywhere are the same, music knows no languages or religions or areas. It is the same for everyone everywhere, he says.
Borstlap says he loves to play solo because then he gets the chance to play with his soul. It comes straight from the heart. When you are playing with others, he believes, you have to make compromises. It is similar to writing or painting. That said, he has collaborated with many internationally-acclaimed artists from around the world.
Since graduating with honours at the conservatory in 1992, the Dutch pianist has made a mark on the international music scene. He won Prize for Best Soloist at Europe Jazz Contest in Brussels in 1992, and was the First European musician to win the Thelonious Monk/BMI Composers Award (1996).
Since then, Borstlap has worked closely together with artists like Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Gino Vannelli, Jimmy Haslip, Bill Bruford and most recently with Ludovico Einaudi. Borstlap has performed at major jazz festivals around the world.
He has released over 20 albums in various settings and line-ups on labels like Universal and Verve and has founded his own record company Gramercy Park. His compositions have been played and recorded by stellar musicians like Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.
In 2007, he formed a duo with Gino Vannelli and played together around the world.
Since 2010, Borstlap has been focussing his career mainly on solo piano concerts. His album “Frames” is the latest in a series of solo albums. In 2014, he joined a new band lead by Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi — Le Piano Africain. Most notably they performed in Milan in front of more than 24,000 people.
Borstlap is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts & Science, serving the Dutch government. He is widely considered as one of the finest pianists of Europe.
His awards include the 1992 Cum Laude Conservatory Amsterdam, 1992 Prize for Best Soloist Europ’ Jazz Contest Brussels Belgium, and Thelonious Monk/BMI Composers Award Washington DC.
He was also the 2008 Winner of Golden Calf (Grand Prize of the Dutch Film Industry for his score of Tiramisu) and 2009 Winner of Edison Award.
