aul Elbers, born in Hilvarenbeek (Holland),20-2-1958, is the composer and arranger of all music on this website. During the recordings, which took place in Holland as well as in Indonesia, he played all the instrument-tracks himself on keyboard. The website shows a lot of his
musical activities between 1991 and 2004.
His whole life is a tribute to music.When he was still very young, he
studied classical music at the music-school of Hilvarenbeek; he was
learning piano, Orff-instruments and music-theory for many years. He
became member of the boys-choir and the organ-player of the local choir of
the Catholic Church. He learned so the Gregorian music.
At the age of high-school he became more interested in popmusic and
started to play in a real schoolband. This band merged later with the
folkrock-formation RK Veulpoepers BV.. There he played Hammond organ. With
Zjef Naaijkens as lyrics-writer he composed almost all the songs for this
band. In 1987, this couple recorded the album/CD ‘Harmoniemodel’ for Hans
Kusters Music(HKM). In 1996 a CD of the reunion-concert of the RK
Veulpoepers was presented by Sony-Music.(This band played for six years
since 1976 and recorded three albums).
Paul Elbers was also the co-founder of the orchestra ‘Fanfare van de
Eeuwigdurende Bijstand’(1979). From the beginning he worked there as the
conductor, arranger and freelance composer. This orchestra was known all
over the country and became an example for music-democratisation. One LP
was recorded, produced by Paul.
Since 1984 some friends formed the MMWOPS( Making Music While Other People
Sleep), a postmodern mini-orchestra, where Paul played the accordeon.
This group played in an acoustic way all kinds of music with tuba,
saxophone, banjo, percussion.This band performed many times on the
international theater-festival ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’(Holland,Belgium,Germany and Canada) and played at many occasions,
organised by the labour-union FNV. Music of MMWOPS/Paul Elbers was used in
the docu-film about this ‘Boulevard’, broadcasted by Dutch Television
(NOS).
Paul performed also many times freelance with a lot of artists like Peer
de Graaf ( alias Saint Peter and Paul), Jan Somers Band, Fanfare of the
first Lovenight(Amsterdam), Sinten Remen(Yogyakarta,Indonesia). He created
his own fusion-band “Tenaga”, with Dave Emarald, Juan van Emmerloot and
Walter Latupeirissa. Paul van Kemenade and Pieter van der Klei were
guest-players on saxophone.
As organiser and initiator, Paul Elbers was not unknown in the
music-scene. Four years he was the chairman of the RK
Veulpoepers-Foundation, which initiated a lot of example-activities like
Culture-club Den Egelantier(Tilburg,Holland), Print-shop ‘Overmorgenklaarzeker’, Polypoepka-publishing and Theater Noorderligt
(Tilburg, Holland). He was the initiator of Leippark-festival in 1985,
known as the ‘blue-print’ for Festival Mundial( www.mundial.nl). This
theater “Noorderligt’ still exists as ‘013’(www.013.nl), which initiated
the Rock-Academy.
In 1989 Paul starts to travel several times to Indonesia. There he met the
amazing power of gamelan-music. He studied this music at Padepokan Bagong
Kussudiardjo, the highschool SMKI (Sekolah Menengah Karawitan Indonesia)
and spent a lot of time at the I.S.I.-campus(Institut Seni Indonesia), all
in Yogyakarta. You can find the musical results at this website. There are
also a few piano-pieces, based on gamelan-music. These are recorded in
Holland,September 2003. On this moment Paul is recording his new album in
his own studio ‘Pakem’. This website will inform you about all the
developments of his music.
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