Biography
Daan Boertien is a Dutch concert pianist who specializes in song accompaniment. He recently performed with internationally acclaimed singers such as Benjamin Appl, Roderick Williams and Thomas Oliemans. His debut CD with baritone Michael Wilmering was praised by the international press. Since 2020, Daan Boertien has been affiliated with the Dutch National Opera Studio as an Associate Artist.
Daan Boertien has won many prizes. For example, in 2020 he was awarded the Berenberg Prize with a prize-winners concert in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. In 2019 he won the DAAD prize of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. In 2018, Daan Boertien received the Dutch Classical Talent Audience Award together with baritone Raoul Steffani. In the same year he won the 1st prize as well as the prize for best song accompanist at the Gustav-Mahler-Wettbewerb in Hamburg, together with Baritone Geng Lee. In 2015 he received the 'Kunst aan de Dijk Prijs voor Jong Talent' and in 2010 Daan was prize winner of the Princess Christina Competition.
At the age of 10, Daan was accepted to the Young Musician's Academy of the Conservatory of Tilburg, where he was taught by Jelena Bazova. He then studied with David Kuyken at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, with the German song specialist Burkhard Kehring. For this he received a grant from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and the Oscar und Vera Ritter-Stiftung Hamburg. Furthermore, he recently received important musical impulses from György Kurtág and Alfred Brendel.
Daan Boertien has performed at festivals such as the International Song Festival Zeist, the Grachtenfestival Amsterdam and the Prinsengrachtconcert, the Harmosfestival (Porto), the Achava Festspiele (Weimar), Festival Jeunes Virtuoses (Tunis) and the Delft Chamber Music Festival. He has also given concerts in the Concertgebouw, TivoliVredenburg, the Dutch National Opera, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ and the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg. He can also be heard regularly on NPO Radio 4 and on television, in tv shows such as Podium Witteman.
Boertien put himself with visible pleasure in the role of clarinet or trumpet. But even more than imitating them on the piano, he searched for the unbridled fantasy of such a clarinetist or such a trumpet player. Extremely skilfull. (...) Sometimes driving, sometimes waiting Boertien gave the singers plenty of room for expression. And how he played the postludium of that last song - unearthly beautiful.
© Petra Teeuwsen