Sytze Smit

Sytze Smit (1944) studied violin and composition at the Conservatory of Music in Groningen, his native city. For more than ten years he was a member of the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, before he decided to combine composing with writing about music and with consultancy.

The Dutch choreographer Rudi van Dantzig used Smit's composition Quipu for his ballet Niemandsland. In 1997 Isabelle van Keulen opened her Delft Chamber Music Festival with the composition Songs and Games for Violin and 8 percussionists, a piece Sytze Smit especially wrote for her. As an adviser, he played a conspicuous role in the process of reorganizing the Dutch orchestral world.

For almost fourteen years Smit was the editor in chief of the highly regarded monthly musical magazine Entracte. In that quality, he made a series of interviews with almost all leading musicians and choreographers in the world.

Between 1996 and 2001, Sytze Smit worked in Enschede as a director of the Conservatorium Hogeschool Enschede. Since spring 2001, he has been using all his time for composition and for running his own business Uilenspiegel, advising all kinds of musical and governmental institutions.