Joep Beving is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam who considers his work simple music for complex emotions. Given the sparse, emotionally vulnerable nature of his music, his physically imposing appearance (six-foot ten height with long hair and a beard) stands in sharp contrast to his languid, haunting creations. Beving’s compositions are sparse, simple, and usually quite minimally adorned. He claims to take a pop approach to composition and performance, resulting in categorizations of his oeuvre as neoclassical.
After playing the piano from an early age, Beving was forced to end his musical studies at the conservatory and instead continued at university to get a degree in public policy and public administration. However, his love for his instrument never perished. Where once his goal was to hit as many notes per minute as physically possible, his style of playing has changed over the years, searching for a particular aesthetic essence. His path was illuminated by a piano that Beving inherited from his grandmother when she passed away in 2009. This German instrument insisted on a gentler touch and a gracious pace, which eventually led Beving to adapt to a more classical vocabulary to tell his story.
April 2019 saw the release of ‘Henosis’, Joep Beving’s closing chapter in a trilogy of albums – marking the end of an intensely personal four-year spiritual and philosophical exploration. On ‘Henosis’ the Dutch composer continued his minimalist, and at times romantic, style of writing while exploring new territories. With the help of producer Gijs van Klooster and through collaborations with Cappella Amsterdam, Echo Collective, and Maarten Vos, Beving opened new musical worlds using orchestral and electronic sounds alongside the familiar Schimmel piano.
In contrast to ‘Henosis’, Beving’s upcoming album ‘Hermetism’ (due April, 2022) harkens back to his earlier composition style, returning to his solo piano roots in a search for universal ideas.