Marcel Worms, pianist

Marcel Worms (1951) studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam with Hans Dercksen. He also had lessons with the Russian pianist Youri Egorov and with Alicia de Larrocha. After graduating in 1987, he specialised in the study of chamber music with Hans Broekman and 20th century piano music with Alexandre Hrisanide.

Marcel Worms remains active as a chamber music player and soloist. In 1990 he premiered early works of Schoenberg in a recital at the Icebreaker in Amsterdam and in 1991 he performed the complete piano works of Janáček. Since 1992 he has often performed the program Jazz Influences in 20th Century Piano Music on Dutch stages. In 1994, this program was recorded and released on the BVHAAST label.

The Groupe des Sept, founded by Marcel Worms, has performed, among other things, the complete works of Poulenc for piano and wind instruments. This program was released on CD by Emergo Classics. 

In 1994, Mondrian’s memorial year, Marcel Worms performed the program Mondrian and the Music of his Time. The composers Willem Breuker and Theo Loevendie each wrote a work for this project. Marcel Worms performed this program in the Netherlands and many other European countries, in Russia (at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow) and in the United States (including the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.). On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Jean Wiéner, he performed a program, in the Netherlands and France, completely dedicated to the piano music of this French composer. BVHAAST released this on CD in 1996.

In 1996, Marcel Worms initiated a unique Blues project: to date, over 200 Dutch and foreign composers, from about 50 countries on all continents, have contributed a work for solo piano. This project was finished in 2017 as Marcel released the last of eight CD’s devoted to this project. Since 1998, Marcel Worms has performed countless concerts comprising selections from his library of works dedicated to him and his project. The Blues have been heard in the Netherlands (for example at the BIMHUIS in Amsterdam), in most European countries, in Russia, the Middle East, the Far East, the United States, Africa, South America and Cuba. In 1999 his Blues project was heard at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague. In 2001 there were performances at the Festival for New Music in Bucharest and at the Warsaw Autumn in Warsaw, and in 2002 at the EU Jazz Festival in Mexico City and the Audio Art Festival in Krakow. In 2004 this program was performed at the Festival De la Música Contemporanea in Bolivia, at the Forum Neuer Musik in Cologne, at the Festival of Aveiro, Portugal and at the Fajr Festival in Iran. In 2005 the pianist presented his Blues project at the Festival Tblisi Autumn in Georgia and in 2008 at the International Pianofestival of Bucaramanga in Columbia. Recently he played it in a number of African countries.

A selection of the newly composed Blues scores has been published by Donemus (Amsterdam) and by Peer Music (Hamburg, Germany).
In april 2017 he finished his bluesproject with a double cd: 20 Years of New Blues for Piano.

As part of the Van Gogh exhibition in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, Marcel Worms made the CD Pictures at a Van Gogh Exhibition, which was also performed in these cities. 

At the request of the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, he put together a program around Picasso that also appeared on CD as part of this exhibition.

A program of tangos from Latin America and Europe was heard, among other places, in China and in Argentina, and it appeared on CD for the BVHAAST label.  

Since 2002, the pianist has been active with the piano works of Federico Mompou. In 2007 he released two CD’s with this composer’s music and organised a three-day Mompou Festival in Amsterdam. In 2009 he debuted on CD some 40 unpublished works of Mompou that had been rediscovered the year before in Barcelona.

In 2012 Marcel Worms recorded on one CD both Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Metamorphosis by Philip Glass. His 2015 CD’s focus on the classical music of the Caribbean (which he performed in the Caribbean and the USA) and on the music of the Baltic countries, including the complete works for piano by Arvo Pärt. Furthermore he recorded the complete cycle The Seasons by the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, piano music of Erik Satie and music by and inspired by Chopin.

During the past years Marcel was focussing on the music of Bach. He recorded a double CD with Preludes and Fugues by Bach, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich and in  the past years he poerformed and recorded Bachs’ complete Welltempered Clavier (book I and II) on two double CD’s. His latest double CD is devoted to the Partita’s of J.S.Bach and his contemporary Christoph Graupner.

Among his regular musical partners is Ursula Schoch (violin)