Ruud van Eeten must be afraid of ageing: in his bio on his website, he doesn’t give his date of birth. He also describes himself as a “cultureel strateeg, bestuurder, adviseur en uitvoerder”, which Google’s translator transcribes into “cultural strategist, director, consultant and implementer”. I guess he didn’t really have the call for composition, then. One of the problems with cultureel strateegs, adviseurs en uitvoeders is that many words reveal little content. I had to go to another website, the Dutch Music Encyclopedia, to learn that he was born in 1973 and hat he had th full training and experience as composer and conductor, although he now seems more involved in project management.
Too bad. Panorama and Inner space – Trance of thought, the two pieces written for and played by the Dutch New Trombone Collective on Etcetera’s 3-CD collection, KTC 1355, were pretty good, breaking no new grounds but with some fine and intriguing harmonic atmospheres.