Guitarist, singer songwriter, guitar teacher, choir leader …
‘The universe of music and sound is close to my heart and highly accessible to me. It is my vocation to open this door to beauty, wholeness and love also for other people. As a guitar teacher, vocal coach and choir leader I practice this for many years now. In doing so I have discovered, again and again, the healing properties of music. And the journey continues… As singer-songwriter/composer I endeavour to do justice to the initial inspiration as it moved through me.’
Jan Duindam has a life-long passion for the human voice and has been singing with ensembles and leading choirs for over 40 years. During this period he has written many songs for choir- and community singing. The most beautiful of these songs are presented in Singing for Inner peace.
The Gregorian chants that he heard and sang so often as a child, fascinated him. The wonderful harmonic resonances in the church opened him up to the universe of sound.
Jan was exposed to many different styles of music, varying from Gregorian Chant when he was very young, chansons Françaises and the music of the sixties, to classical music. From the late sixties to the late seventies, Jan has been singing the folk music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Bretagne and the Netherlands with his brothers Nol and Stefan as well as his sisters Blanca and Hedwig. Singing these pure and lovely songs felt like ‘coming home’ and has strongly influenced his way of singing and composing. Later Jan studied jazz and the music of the Middle East. He sings his own songs from the mid sixties until this day.
During the eighties and nineties he studied at the ‘Roy hart theatre’ (Malerargues, France) and later explored the ‘Lichtenberger method’. Since 2010, Jan delved into the singing method ‘Uncovering the Voice’*, an approach that resulted from a collaboration between the Swedish singer Valborg Werbeck and Rudolf Steiner. This approach resonates powerfully with Jan’s own ideas and experience and provided him with some further essential keys and attitudes to natural singing.
Jan is essentially autodidact which contributes to the uniqueness of his music: “My heart and senses have taught me the skills and the attitude to create music from within.”
Jan is also an accomplished songwriter and guitarist. His music distinguishes itself by an ambience of contained passion; his songs are about the meaning of life and longing for union. His music is recorded on several LPs and CDs (see discography) and is available via the online music streaming services.
* Uncovering the Voice (‘Schule der Stimmenthüllung’) is a path of spiritual development through the art of singing.