Biography

Udo van Boven graduated in The Hague in 1989. Since 1986 he has played at numerous festivals, including the North Sea Jazz Festival (The Hague, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1994), Novi Sad Jazz Festival (Serbia, 2002), the Chiayi City International Band Festival (Taiwan, 2007) and the Tetracordo Jazz Festival (Italy, 2016). He participated in several jazz competitions (finalist), including the Pall Mall Swing Award (2x), Wessel Ilcken-Prijs (winner Loosdrecht Touristenprijs), the Hoeilaard Jazz Festial (Brussels), Martial Solal International Jazz Competition (Paris) and won the year 2000 the Wim Bary Perspective prize (2nd). Across Europe, he is a much sought-after accompanist to national and international musicians and performs with his own trio.

As a conductor / arranger, he has worked with the Metropole Orchestra, the Big Band of the Royal Conservatory (a.o. Barry Harris Artist in Residence Project 1995), The Skymasters, The Reeds, The Hague All Star Big Band, Big Band of the Concertgebouw, Manhattan Jazz Orchestra (USA), Almost Big Band (Denmark) and Mahidol University Big Band (Thailand).

In addition to his private practice, from 1979 to the present, he has taught the subjects of jazz-piano, arranging, music theory at Codarts (Rotterdam), the Maastricht Conservatory and Mahidol University, College of Music (Bangkok, Thailand), combo lessons and big band. Nowadays he is active as piano player and arranger in Ben Schröder’s Vintage Sextet and has initiated his own quintet and nonet.