Laurens Kagenaar

Hailing from Haarlem in Holland (born in 1975), Laurens Kagenaar played violin in his early youth, but eventually was more interested in electronic instruments such as synthesizers and drum computers, as well as painting. After elementary and secondary at the Rudolf Steiner school in Haarlem, from age 4 to 18, and receiving piano and music theory lessons from teacher Tony Nahar, he had the honor of being admitted to the institute for Sonology at the The Hague Royal Conservatory.

Around this time he was also being heavily influenced by hiphop music and the improvisational and harmonic explorations in jazz music. He started to play vintage keyboards in bands and with artists like Poodle Naked, GUTT (winner of the hiphop Grand Dutch Price1996) Postmen and E-life. Most of these projects were about blending and recycling various musical styles. After having studied at the Institute for Sonology for six years, he graduated with a Bachelor degree in 1998 followed by a Masters degree in 2000. He was taught and influenced by the likes of Kees Tazelaar, Paul Berg, Konrad Boehmer, Richard Barrett, Clarence Barlow, Joel Ryan and Jan Boerman, to name but a few.

During his studies he concentrated on tape music composition and electronic live performance, but apart from that also studied classical music theory, jazz theory and counterpoint. After these studies he composed two pieces for ’The fund for creating tone-art’. Through the years he has been working for and in cooperation with various artists. These activities included composition, arranging, sound design, co-productional work, programming, live performance and consultancy.