Tales of the River Horse - BSN/PN

Tales of the River Horse

for bassoon and piano
by Martin J. Van Klompenberg - American bassoonist and composer

ABOUT THE MUSIC

The hippopotamus has always interested me. I can clearly remember the first hippos I ever saw, at the Detroit Zoo and the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. After a slight ebb in my interest in adulthood, it came back alive with the birth of Fiona at the Cincinnati Zoo in January 2017. A severely premature birth, Fiona was not expected to live beyond a few days, let alone the eight years she has thrived.

My love of hippos led to my desire to tell the stories that deeply interested me, in a medium I deeply enjoy: The bassoon sonata. Each movement of this work tells the story of a different hippopotamus. The opening movement, The Most Famous Cincinnatian, tells of Fiona. The dark story of the unexpected early delivery, certain to lead to death of the newborn hippo, which brightened with every
successive day that Fiona lived.

Broussard’s Idea tells the story of The American Hippo Act, an unsuccessful piece of legislation seeking to solve two problems in the United States at the turn of the 19th Century: The water hyacinth that choked the rivers of Louisiana, and the meat shortage throughout the country.

Malagasy Cryptid is about the now extinct Madagascar Pygmy Hippopotamus. Despite dying out roughly four hundred years ago, locals have made many claims that lone individuals might still live in the forest of the island nation.

The piece ends with Hipopótamo de Cocaína, about the hippos abandoned in the mountains of Colombia following the arrest of Pablo Escobar. These four individual’s have multiped into more than a hundred, wrecking havoc on the environment in the area.

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Originally from Holland, Michigan, Martin J. Van Klompenberg currently teaches bassoon and chamber music at the Challey School of Music at North Dakota State University.  From 2013 – 2022, he served as a member of the United States Army Band program, performing with the 101st Airborne Division “Air Assault” Band (Fort Campbell, KY), the 282nd Army Band (Fort Jackson, SC), and the 323rd Army Band “Fort Sam’s Own” (Fort Sam Houston/San Antonio, TX). Prior to joining the ranks of military musicians, he attended the University of Arizona, where he obtained the Doctorate of Musical Arts degree, studying with William Dietz. He also earned degrees from Arizona State University and Western Michigan University, studying with Albie Micklich and Wendy Rose, respectively. He has also studied composition with award-winning composer Jenni Brandon.

Martin currently performs with the Fargo-Moorhead and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras, and has been privileged to perform with the Louisville Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony (Charleston, WV), Lexington (KY) Philharmonic, Fargo-Moorhead Opera, and his hometown, Holland (MI) Symphony Orchestra. He has also been fortunate to perform at conferences for the International Double Reed Society, the International Clarinet Association, the National Flute Association, the College Music Society, and the Texas Music Education Association.

A proponent of new music, Martin is active in commissioning projects for new works for bassoon, commissioning and premiering new works by Jamie Leigh Sampson, Lisa Neher, Rob McClure, Shao Fern Teo, Dylan Findley, and Brian Bunker. Currently, Martin is working with composer Snow Kim to commission a new piece for contrabassoon and piano.

As a composer, his works have been performed by artists such as the Heartland Marimba Ensemble, the University of Georgia Contemporary Ensemble, 240 Northern (Vancouver, British Columbia), Scott Pool (Bassoon – Texas A&M at Corpus Christi), Valerie Cowan (The United States Army Fife and Drum Corps), and Erin (Webber) Mallard (Oboe – The University of Texas at San Antonio), and at venues such as the National Flute Association annual convention, the International Clarinet Association ClarinetFest, International Double Reed Society annual conference, Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention, Vox Novus and the Tutti New Music Festival. In 2023, he was chosen as a winner of the International Double Reed Society Commissioning Competition, and his work, 3 Travelers, for solo bassoon, was premiered by Kunatorn Teekakul at their 2023 Annual Conference in Thailand. In July 2024, his new concerto for contrabassoon and chamber orchestra, The Crater of Doom, was premiered in Flagstaff, Arizona by Leigh Munoz (University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory of Music) and the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra .

When not playing bassoon, Martin enjoys spending time with his wife, Abbie, (Assistant Professor of Music Education, Concordia College, Moorhead, MN), and his two rescue dogs, Sirius and Luna, visiting America’s zoos and supporting the Chicago Cubs.