Pianist/composer Egbert Derix (1969, Horst, The Netherlands) studied at the Maastricht Conservatory with Irv Rochlin, Frank Giebels and Louise Wolfs and in New York with Steve Kuhn, Mulgrew Miller and David Berkman.
He was composer-pianist of the Searing Quartet and is known for his collaborations with Bendik Hofseth, Eric Vloeimans, Iain Matthews, Glenn Corneille, Supertramp saxophonist John Helliwell, Huub Stapel, Ton Engels, Margriet Sjoerdsma, Marion Vervoort, Marillion and Fish.
In 2002 Derix was awarded the prize for Best Original Composition at the North Sea Jazz Festival and that same year the Searing Quartet won the first Jerry van Rooyen Award. In 2012 he won the Annie M.G. Schmidt Prize together with Gerard van Maasakkers. His solo piano album ‘Falco’ from 2016 was compared to Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert by Musicmaker.
Derix composes for TV & film and played and wrote the soundtrack for the BNN-Vara documentary ‘Nao ’t Zuuje’ , the TV series ‘Olympische Dromen’ and the documentary ‘Gedraag Ow’. His German songcycle ‘Wandern’ was recorded in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and he performed the songcycle with baritone Sef Thissen and the Wiener Kammersymphonie in the Richard Strauss villa in Vienna for which he arranged ‘Wandern’.
His most recent albums are ‘Dark Night of the Soul – Exit Ego’, a double album with piano improvisations on the one hand and analogue synthesizer sounds in combination with spoken word by Eckhart Tolle, Bill Hicks and Alan Watts on the other. ‘Boomasiel’ (2022), an album with poems set to music. Actor Huub Stapel narrated on ‘Boomasiel’. ‘Deo Volente’ (2024) an album with string quartets. ‘Being Time’ (2024) analogue synthesizer landscapes. ‘Namaskar’ (2025) solo piano improvisations and compositions.
In October 2022, the live album ‘Gardens of Abundance’ by Egbert Derix & Eric Vloeimans was released. The successor, ‘Gardens of Abundance II’ was released in 2024.
Derix was a teacher at Fontys Rock Academy in Tilburg (The Netherlands) for 15 years and is also a writer of poems and short stories.
TUINEN VAN OVERVLOED
het wordt stiller in de zaal
en stiller in ons
we lopen op en nemen onze plaats in
klaar voor de wandeling
samen
met z’n twee
en iedereen mag mee
we laten het gebeuren
niet in zwart wit maar alle kleuren
met kinderlijke verwondering
verlaten we de paden
vinden we elkaar steeds weer
spelend in het groen
zien we bomen groeien
bloemen bloeien
elk moment opnieuw beginnen
die tuin daar buiten komt van binnen
Egbert Derix 2024
Gardens of Abundance II