What is the best thing about being a musician? The stage is for me the right place to share my feelings with friends, colleagues and public; feelings that I can only express by my musicianship, which I could not put into words or express better in any other way.
The most inspiring composer: I see no “most”, but several interesting composers, all for different personal reasons. The ones I feel close to, could be Haydn, Schubert or Shostakovich.
How do you spend your free time? Experimenting in the kitchen, reading, playing chess, listening to the music of the forest…
What’s the last book you read? Skandal: Kunst! A book explaining the political, social or artistic reasons for which specific pieces of art were creating a scandal in their time of creation.
Which are your Desert Island Discs? Offstage I enjoy silence. If any CD it will probably be one of Giora Feidman.
BIOGRAPHY Jaan Bossier studied clarinet under Prof. Walter Boeykens and piano under Prof. Robert Groslot at the Koninklijk Vlaams Musikconservatorium in Antwerp, receiving his Diplom mit grootste onderscheiding in 1996. He has played clarinet with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra since 1997 and bass clarinet with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA since 2003.
In December of 2000, he made his conducting debut with the Belgian ensemble for new and experimental music, Champ d’Action, and has since led the group at the Vienna Modern, Ars Musica Brussels, deSingel in Antwerp, the Concertgebouw Brugge, and at the Museum Reina Sophia in Madrid among others. He participated in conducting masterclasses with Jorma Panula as well as taking private lessons from Pierre Boulez and Zsolt Nagy. Jaan Bossier is co-founder and conductor of Ensemble 306, which is based in Eindhoven and specializes in contemporary music.
Together with Mahler Chamber Soloists as well as such musicians as Rainer Honeck (concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic), pianist Christoph Berner, and the soloists of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Jaan has performed chamber music in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Japan. He also founded and plays clarinet with the chamber music group Particella and is since 2009 a member of the clarinet ensemble Clarinetnews.
In addition to the MCO, Jaan Bossier has played with such groups as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie in Bremen, the Orchestra Mozart (Bologna), the Staatstheater Orchestra in Darmstadt, the St. Petersburg Camerata, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Brabants Orkest, and nearly all the noteworthy Belgian orchestras.
In September of 2000, in Venice, Turin, and Schwaz, he appeared as a soloist in performances of Luigi Nono’s Prometheus Suite with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of André Richard und Arturo Tamayo.
Jaan has taught at the annual Northern German clarinet conference since 2006 and at Bremen’s music conservatory in the clarinet, bass clarinet, and new music departments since 2009. He also gave a masterclass in Caracas, Venezuela, in February of 2007. Jaan taught at the Orchesterzentrum in Dortmund in 2010 and 2011 and gave another masterclass in Vic, Spain.
Jaan Bossier can be heard on various CDs and DVDs of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, Champ d’Action, Ensemble 306, and Clarinetnews.
