This arrangement for Eronel, a well-known Thelonious Monk original, was written by Passenier during the course of the Metropole Orchestra Arrangers Workshop 2012 (MOAW). The setting: spend four arranging behind your laptop on your hotel room, and rehearse during the day with the Metropole Orchestra on new arrangements featuring Kurt Elling. Then, on Thursday morning, the orchestra gets the sheet, you don’t get to say a word about it, and after a single run-through it gets recorded in two takes. Edit in ten minutes, and here’s the result…!

Commissioned as a result of receiving the Rogier van Otterloo Award 2017, Certo was composed by Passenier in 2018, and performed in August 2018, at Radio Kootwijk, by the Young Metropole, led by Vince Mendoza – six and a half years after having met at the Metropole Arrangers Workshop.

In Certo, Passenier particularily honours the heritage of Danish composer Jens Winther, Bob Brookmeyer, Vince Mendoza and Maurice Ravel.

The composition Saturn, for symphony orchestra & wind band, was commissioned to Jesse Passenier at the occasion of the founding of a new prestigious youth orchestra for the province of Noord-Brabant: the Brabant Youth Project Orchestra (Brabants Jeugd Project Orkest, or BJPO).

This recording took place at Theater aan de Parade, Den Bosch, on June 26, 2018, and was performed by philharmonie zuidnederland with the BJPO, led by Dominik Beykirch.

Special thanks to Johan Smeulders for preparing the BJPO so well for this performance, and good luck to BBM and BJPO, with Leonie Heezemans in particular, continuing this great initiative!