John Borstlap is a composer and author on cultural subjects, covering music and the visual arts. As a composer, he has been pioneering with a revival of tonal traditions since the seventies of the last century, an exploration comparable with a similar movement in contemporary architecture: new classicism, and new figurative (or realist) painting in the visual arts. While almost completely ignored most of his life in his home country The Netherlands for being incompatible with the local cultural climate, his music was recognized abroad with orchestral performances since 2016, showing that his music was much ahead of its time. Hence, he cannot be considered ‘a Dutch composer’ but a European one, with roots in the Austro/German classical tradition. The continent’s cultural identity is a subject central to his musical philosophy, which finds expression in his articles and his books; both his music and his writings earned him the accolade of the late Sir Roger Scruton of being ‘the voice of European culture’.

John Borstlap studied at the Rotterdam Conservatory, where he was not allowed to enter for the final exam because of not writing music which answered the aesthetics of modernism as cultivated in the new music scene at the time. But in his thirties he took a Masters Degree at the University of Cambridge (England) where such strictures did not exist. His (first) Violin Concerto from 1974 won prizes at the Prince Pierre Competition in Monaco and the Wieniawski Competition in Poznan (Poland). Performances of his ‘Sinfonia’ (1st symphony) in 1990 by the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra under Hartmut Haenchen were an audience success, but were strongly condemned by the press for ‘not being modern enough’. But in 1997 a CD of chamber works was issued in England (‘Hyperion’s Dream’, Albany Records).

In 1998 John Borstlap realised, with the generous support of NOG Verzekeringen (director: Ton Boersma), a chamber music festival ‘Tradition and Renewal’ in Haarlem with internationally renown performers; however, resistance of local musical parties prevented its success from being followed-up. In 2001 the London-based New Queen’s Hall Orchestra premiered ‘Psyche’, an elaboration of Wagner’s sketch ‘Romeo und Julie’ from 1868, after which other performances followed by the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de Montpellier, performances which met with warm responses from audiences but were not followed-up by other orchestras, the work’s style falling outside of what usually was considered contemporary music. 

John Borstlap wrote various articles on contemporary music and wider cultural issues, which have been published in various journals in the Netherlands and abroad, among others two essays on cultural identity which were published on the EuroNews website. In 2001 his groundbreaking essay ‘Recreating the Classical Tradition’ was published in the collection of essays ‘Reviving the Muse’ (Claridge Press, UK 2001). Also he has been involved in the organisation of a music conference ‘Redefining Musical Identities’ at the University of Amsterdam in 2002, and was a speaker at the international conference ‘Music and Patronage in the Low Countries’ of the Royal Society of Dutch Music History in 2010, also at the University of Amsterdam. All these activities only reinforced his reputation as an outsider with ideas that were not welcome in the new music scene, and mainly caused puzzlement in the central performance culture.

In 2002 he set up, together with two collegues: Joep Franssens and Jeff Hamburg, the Composers Group Amsterdam. The group’s artistic credo can be summarised as the ‘Renewal of Cultural Traditions’, bridging the gap between new music and the central performance culture. In February 2003 the group featured in a live programme on Dutch national TV and in July 2004 the German national radio station ARD dedicated a programme to CGA’s music and ideas: ‘Visions of a new European music’. The group’s proposal to the Dutch Ministery for Culture in 2003 for a new way of organising the state subsidies for new music, has set a partial reform in motion in 2006, which antagonized many composers in Holland who enjoyed privileged treatment in the old system. In later years, this partial reform was turned back under the pressure from the network of state subsidized composers. Borstlap’s campaigning for a fair funding of commissions without soviet-style ‘quality control’ by comitees selected from interest groups, led to a total excommunication from Dutch music life. In 2012 he took the national subsidy foundation to court when a commission was refused payment. Supported by international musicology experts like Sir Roger Scruton and Dr Andreas Dorschel, Borstlap won the case, but the court decided that payment was not necessary, in flagrant contradiction to any legal sense. From that moment onwards, Borstlap no longer considered himself a Dutch composer.

John Borstlap’s ideas about new possibilities of the classical tradition (in the broadest sense) in the 21st century, which are shared by other composers like David Matthews, Nicolas Bacri, Richard Dubugnon, Karol Beffa, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Hersant, Alexander Smelkov (and already pioneered by George Rochberg, David del Tredici and Richard Danielpour) are part of a wider international debate in aesthetics as shown by the work of Alexander Nehamas (‘The Place of Beauty in a World of Art’), Sir Roger Scruton (‘Beauty’), Paolo Euron (‘Art, Beauty and Imitation’), Denis Dutton (‘The Art Instinct’) and Andreas Dorschel (‘Vom Preis des Fortschritts’), and the work of the German theorist and composer Wolfgang Andreas Schultz (‘Damit die Musik nicht aufhört’, ‘Avantgarde – Trauma – Spiritualität’, ‘Die Heilung des verlorenen Ichs’, ‘Europas Zweite Renaissance’).

In 2012 John Borstlap finished a short book about new classical music: ‘The Classical Revolution’ (the Scarecrow Press / Rowman & Littlefield, New York 2013), which was well received and provoked some intense debate in the Neue Musikzeitung, one of the prominent music magazines in Germany.

In the autumn of 2014, international star conductor Jaap van Zweden, who had discovered Borstlap’s music, saved him from his increasing artistic isolation in Holland, and initiated a commission, shared by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmomic Orchestra, resulting in the short work ‘Solemn Night Music’, which was premiered in March and June 2016 by the respective orchestras under Van Zweden. The success of these performances (‘… unashamedly beautiful…’) led to a new commission, this time shared by the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Shanghai Symphony, for a (second) violin concerto ‘Dreamscape Voyage’; two successful premiere performances, again under the baton of Van Zweden, took place in November 2022 in Hong Kong with Jing Wang as soloist. Due to the way China handled the covid epidemic, performances in Shanghai fell through. The concerto was broadcast on Hong Kong radio and later on BBC Radio 3.

The European première of ‘Dreamscape Voyage’ has been planned for January 2027 by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz under the direction of British conductor Michael Francis. The belated, successful Dutch première of ‘Traum, Lenz, Verwandlung’ (string quartet) by the Italian/German Alinde Quartet took place on 29th October 2025 in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, with further performances abroad being in preparation as well as a CD recording for Hänssler Classic.

In January 2017 John Borstlap was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Future Symphony Institute in Baltimore.

In August of the same year, the 2nd edition of ‘The Classical Tradition’ was launched by the well-known publishing house Dover in New York. 

https://store.doverpublications.com/products/9780486814483?_pos=2&_sid=52685bd9d&_ss=r

A new book about the classical music world in relation to modernity, has been published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, in January 2024: ‘Regaining Classical Music’s Relevance’, with a paperback edition in September 2024.

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-5314-9

Also in preparation is a recording project with the chamber orchestra Kölner Akademie with the symphonies No. I and III, to be issued by the internationally-acclaimed label BIS.

February 2026

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