Bob Zimmerman wins the first Buma Oeuvre Award Media in Music
photography: meisje met de camera | Buma Music in Motion
Composer and MiMM-board member Bob Zimmerman wins the first Buma Oeuvre Award Media in Music. Bob was presented with the prize during the presentation of the Buma Music in Media Awards on April 19 in the Tropenmuseum (KIT) in Amsterdam. Film director Rudolf van den Berg for whom he composed the music for the film De Avonden, among other things, addressed Bob in a very personal speech in which he had incorporated anecdotes about their collaboration.
Loek Dikker, composer and one of his contemporaries and fellow MiMM board member, has written a personal message to Bob for Private Kitchen, which can be read in both Dutch and English.
Hey Bob,
Remember how our careers started? We performed as instrumentalists across an eclectic range of musical styles and formations; we accompanied comedians who were famous at the time, performed jazz one day and avant-garde serious music the next. Later on in our careers, we also started writing orchestral film music.
Composing is a lonely craft, or so we thought - until it struck us that it doesn’t have to be that way. In the Middle Ages, cathedrals were built collectively by craftsmen, and their design and construction could not be linked to one specific make. Why wouldn’t composers collectively create musical scores?
So, you and I developed a model in which as many as 15 composers could collaborate on one orchestral music score, for example to accompany a silent film. The project came to fruition within the context of the Music Institute MultiMedia (MiMM), which we co-founded, with the intention to strengthen the self-awareness and community of multimedia composers. This was much needed, given the rapidly deteriorating professional conditions in our field.
You took on the heavy responsibility of editor-in-chief. You made this task look deceptively easy, and with your psychological insight you managed to give inexperienced composers the feeling that, with your help, they would get the orchestral job done. As such, you were pivotal in fostering a wonderful feeling of togetherness among composers who were used to seeing each other as competitors. Everyone eagerly learned from each other.
The success of this model can be felt and seen in its outcomes: our Music Institute Multimedia has triumphantly filled large sold-out venues such as the Doelen Concert Hall Rotterdam, with 'live' orchestral film music projects like the 'The Phantom Carriage,' which was recently performed at the EYE Film Institute.
With your talents and energy, you have successfully built a sizable oeuvre with many highlights in all areas of Dutch music practice - media music being prominently featured among these achievements. But you are so much more than a talented and prolific composer: it is your musical leadership and craftsmanship, your commitment and your talent for helping people rise above and beyond themselves, that have made our unique film music projects with so many participating composers a great success - in every way. No one else could have done this.
For that reason alone, an Oeuvre Award is more than deserved. It has, as it were, been waiting for you for years.
I therefore conclude with the observation: “Well then, here it is, finally!”
Loek Dikker
Amsterdam, 19 april 2023.
Ha Bob,
Zo begon het in onze carrières: allerlei optredens als instrumentalist, in alle mogelijke stijlen, met toen beroemde cabaretiers, tot jazz en avantgarde serieuze muziek. Later gingen wij ook orkestrale filmmuziek schrijven.
Componeren is een eenzame taak, dat dachten we -tot we op het idee kwamen dat het ook anders zou kunnen. Zoals in de Middeleeuwen de kathedralen door de ambachtslieden gezamenlijk werden gebouwd, waardoor de bouw en het ontwerp niet aan één specifieke maker verbonden kan worden.
Vanuit het door ons opgerichte Muziekinstituut MultiMedia (MiMM) bedachten we een model, waarbij zelfs 15 componisten aan één orkestrale muziek voor bijvoorbeeld een zwijgende film kunnen werken. Hiermee willen we het zelfbewustzijn en de community van de componisten multimedia te versterken, en dat was hard nodig vanwege de snel verslechterende professionele condities in ons vakgebied.
Als vanzelf -wat het natuurlijk nièt was- nam jij daarbij de zware taak van de hoofdredactie op je. En met vanzelfsprekend gemak en psychologisch inzicht wist je ook onervaren componisten het gevoel te geven, dat ze met jouw hulp de orkestrale klus wel zouden klaren.
Daardoor ontstond een wonderlijk saamhorigheidsgevoel bij componisten die eigenlijk ook elkaars concurrenten waren. Iedereen leerde daarbij gretig van elkaar.
Zo vulde ons Muziekinstituut Multimedia triomfantelijk grote uitverkochte zalen als de Rotterdamse Doelen en het EYE Filminstituut, met projecten met ‘live’ orkestrale filmmuziek zoals onlangs voor ‘The Phantom Carriage’.
Je hebt inmiddels met jouw talenten en werkkracht een groot oeuvre opgebouwd met vele hoogtepunten op alle terreinen in de Nederlandse muziekpraktijk -de mediamuziek niet in de laatste plaats.
Maar het zijn jouw muzikaal leiderschap en vakmanschap, jouw inzet en jouw talent om mensen boven zichzelf uit te doen stijgen, die ervoor gezorgd hebben dat onze unieke filmmuziek-projecten met zo veel deelnemende componisten een groot succes werden -in alle opzichten. Niemand anders had dit voor elkaar gekregen.
Alleen daarom al, is een Oeuvre Award meer dan verdiend, hij heeft als het ware al jaren voor je klaargelegen.
Ik sluit daarom af met de observatie: “zo, daar is ie dan, eìndelijk!”
Loek Dikker
Amsterdam, 19 april 2023.
Bob Zimmerman
Composer and arranger
Composer and arranger Bob Zimmerman (Amsterdam, 1948) is regarded as an icon in the Dutch music world. He wrote his first compositions at the age of seven and after his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, he quickly made a name for himself as a composer for theater and later film. Although the LP with music composed by him for the film 'An Bloem' was awarded an Edison in 1984, his major breakthrough as a film composer is the work for Rudolf van den Berg's film 'De Avonden' from 1989. His scores support much films, such as 'For My Baby' (1997), 'Snapshots' (2002), 'Tirza' (2010) and 'Süskind' (2012).
Zimmerman also composed the music for the documentary 'Staal & Lavendel' about Cornelis Verolme (2007) and for nature films 'De Nieuwe Wildernis' (2013) and 'Holland: Nature in the Delta' (2015). As a creative director he recently supervised sixteen composers in creating a new score for the silent film classic 'The Phantom Carriage' (1921).
In addition to his work for various projects in the media, Zimmerman is one of the arrangers of the Metropole Orkest. He also regularly worked for the Royal Family, his most famous work being his arrangement of Astor Piazzolla's tango Adiós Nonino. Performed by bandoneon player Carel Kraayenhof, this arrangement elicited Máxima's now iconic tear during the wedding of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Máxima Zorreguieta.
photography: Anne Dokter