Hans Kox 
19 May 1930 Arnhem – 25 February 2019 Haarlem

Education

The son of a choral conductor and organist, Hans Kox studied at the Utrecht Conservatory from 1946-1948. In the years following (1949-1955) he pursued private composition studies with Henk Badings and private piano studies (1949-1951) with Jaap Spaanderman. Kox graduated with a degree in piano performance cum laude.

Career and personal life

Kox was appointed organist at the St. Walburgis Church in Arnhem in 1949, succeeding Herman Strategier. He later served as director of the music school in Doetinchem (1957-1970), artistic advisor of the North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra in Haarlem (1970-1974) and as a lecturer of composition at the Conservatory of Music in Utrecht (1974-1984).
 
In 1953, while still a student, he made his debut at the Gaudeamus Music Week with a string trio and a piano sonata. In 1955 he wrote his First String Quartet and in 1956 he received his first commission from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, for whom he wrote his Concertante Music for three brass instruments and orchestra.
 
Hoog spel, a biography by Bas van Putten, was published in 2005 on the occasion of Kox’s 75th birthday.
 
Kox has three daughters from his first marriage to Anita Pereboom. She studied at the art academy in Arnhem. After a year of living in Amsterdam, Anita and Hans moved to Apeldoorn in the late 1950s. During this time Hans Kox worked as director of the music school in Doetinchem. The construction of a new, for that time very modern music school, took place under his leadership. After his divorce in the early 1970s, Kox moved to Haarlem and lived there with his second wife with whom he had formed a piano duo in the 1960s, Hélène André de la Porte. He bought a house in Haarlem opposite the Haarlemmer Hout and lived there together with Hélène and many cats, for more than forty years. His love for the mountains and the silence brought him to Switzerland, where he bought his first chalet in Granois also in the 1970s. Later he would have a new chalet built and stayed there for three months during the summer and also as long as possible in the winter. Hans Kox was a teenager when in Arnhem, where he lived, the evacuation took place. The Second World War had a lasting influence on himself and on his work.

Nine composers in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. In the foreground are Anthon van der Horst and Rudolf Mengelberg. Standing from left to right: Jurriaan Andriessen, Ton de Leeuw, Oscar van Hemel, Herman Strategier, Henk Badings, Karel Mengelberg and Hans Kox.

Compositions

From 1984 onward Kox devoted himself entirely to composing. He secluded himself, remarking, “Composing is simply the loneliest profession on earth. I knew that when I got started, and actually I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Over a career spanning 60 years, Kox completed 261 compositions, including film and theatre music as well as younger compositions. 163 compositions have been published by his publisher Donemus, publishing house of contemporary classical music and 3 compositions for brass band with Molenaar Publishers. His music has no specific intentions or meaning. Kox described his music as “just music, sound. Music is itself, however one wants to interpret this.”
 
Kox received numerous commissions from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Buma Cultural Fund and the Dutch government, among others, alongside commissions from organizations and ensembles in Germany, Belgium, Venezuela and the United States. He wrote the compulsory work Le Songe du Vergier for violoncello and orchestra for the 1987 Scheveningen International Music Competition. In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Dutch Liberation Kox composed the Anne Frank Cantata: a Child of Light (1984), premiered on May 4, 1985 in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. This piece is a part of the War Trilogy, the other works of which are In those Days (1969) and Requiem for Europe (1971). 

Hans Kox at the television recording from In Those Days. He won the Prix Italia in 1970 with this composition.

The oratorio Sjoah, for soloists, choir and orchestra, was written in 1989. Kox also wrote the operas Dorian Gray (1973) and Das grüne Gesicht (1991), the cantata Das Credo quia absurdum (1995), six symphonies and, among numerous concerti, works for violin and cello. His chamber opera Rochester’s second bottle (2002) was performed in Birmingham in March 2003; in May 2005 British violinist Daniel Hope and the Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra performed the premiere of his fourth Violin Concerto.

Chamber music forms a substantial part of his repertoire; there is almost no classical instrument for which Kox did not compose. He enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with saxophonist John-Edward Kelly (1958-2015), whose outstanding musicality and fabulous technique inspired Kox to write numerous compositions for saxophone, including The Stranger (upon Earth) (1993), for alto saxophone and voice.
In December 2018 he received his very last commission: a work for 11 saxophones (from soprano to bass) for the Boston-based Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra, to be performed in New York and Boston. Kox sadly did not have the chance to fulfill this particularly inspiring commission.
His most recent works include Sonata no. 2 for violoncello solo (2011), Symphony no. 6 – Im Auftrag der Vergangenheit, for mixed choir and orchestra (2012), String Quartet no. 3 (2014-2015) and Stray Birds for trumpet and organ (2015). Kox very last composition from 2016 was dedicated to pianist Frank van de Laar “Capriccioso for piano: Quasi un’ illusione”

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Two of his most recent CDs include:

• Die Todesfrau (2015) with the compositions Die Todesfrau (2005), Lalage’s Monologues (2011) and Gedächtnislieder (1972). Included in this issue is a DVD, A portrait of Hans Kox; (Attacca ATT 2014.137)
• Dorian Gray (2012), an opera in two acts, performed by the Radio Chamber Orchestra, conducted by the composer himself. (Attacca ATT 2012-130.131)

Awards

Hans Kox was the recipient of numerous prizes; at the Haarlem International Organ Competition in 1954, the Cultural Prize of the City of Arnhem, and the Music Prize of the City of Amsterdam in 1956 for Preludium and Fugue, and the Visser-Neerlandia Prize in 1959 for Symphony no. 1, at the Prix Italia in 1970 for In Those Days, and the First Prize of the Rostrum of Composers in 1974 for L’Allegria. Kox was awarded the Penning van Verdienste (Medal of Merit) of the City of Haarlem and was appointed Ridder in de Orde van Oranje Nassau (Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau).