Henk Hofstede

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Henk Hofstede

Henk Hofstede (born September 20, 1951 in Amsterdam ) is a Dutch songwriter, musician and visual artist. He is best known as the singer of the band Nits .

Life

Hofstede grew up in East Amsterdam as the son of a building contractor. At the age of eight, he started playing pop music with friends. He studied art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 1974 he founded the band The Nits with Michiel Peters and Rob Kloet . He is their singer, guitarist, main songwriter and also plays the keyboard instruments. Hofstede's professional interest in painting and sculpture is often reflected in the texts of the nits ( A Touch Of Henry Moore , Vermilion Pencil , Tons Of Ink ). In his texts he often conjures up a frozen, surreal atmosphere of an imaginary Holland, which appears cheerful and human due to its humorous and absurd elements.

In 2002 Hofstede released his first solo album, the songs for the installation Het draagbare huis ( the portable house ). Het draagbare huis was commissioned by the Musée d'Art Contemporain in Lyon on the occasion of the 2001 Biennale there.

Under the alter ego of the fictional singer Henrik Johånsen , a rustic parody of an obscure, forgotten New Wave musician from southern Sweden, he released the CD Vacker utsikt with texts from a Swedish textbook set to music .

Since 2002, Henk Hofstede has regularly contributed to CDs by the Swiss composer Simon Ho alias Simon Hostettler. Before Sleep (2002), If (2005) and Normal Sunday - live (2006) are documents of the collaboration between Hofstede and some other (ex) members of the Nits, the Swiss band Simon Hos and - on the last two CDs - the singers the Finnish folk-pop group Värttinä .

In 2006 Hofstede founded the Avalanche Quartet, a formation in which he interprets Leonard Cohen's songs together with Pim Kops, Arwen Linnemann and Marjolein van der Klauw . The CD Leonard Cohen Songs was released from this project .

The album Aardige jongens from August 2008 was created in collaboration with the Dutch musicians Frank Boeijen and Henny Vrienten .

In September 2010 the Ho Orchestra performed a new program in Switzerland. The Spoon River Project is a setting of Edgar Lee Masters' prose poetry by Hofstede and Hostettler.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated November 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Dutch, accessed October 8, 2010  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.boeijenhofstedevrienten.nl


personal data
SURNAME Hofstede, Henk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hofstede, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch songwriter, musician and visual artist
DATE OF BIRTH 20th September 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam