Biography

Raymond Vievermanns was born in 1963 in a small village called Nieuwenhagerheide in Limburg, the most southern province of the Netherlands. At the age of seven he already joined the local, well known fanfare band "Eendracht"with his father. At the Music school in Heerlen he had lessons with Noël Speetjens. The conductor of the band, Guus Erkens, also contributed in his musical development.

Until the age of eighteen he played the flugelhorn. When he was accepted at the Maastricht Conservatory he changed to the trumpet. His first teacher was Wim Groot, former principal trumpet player in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. After he retired he received lessons from Theo Wolters with whom he passed his exams in 1986 and 1988.

Photo at the right: Raymond Vievermanns and Ruud Visser (Het Brabants Orkest) in front of the organ in "de Grote Kerk" of Breda

Band conducting was his second study with Martin Koekelkoren and Sef Pijpers.
During his study Raymond was active in many orchestras and ensembles like Ensemble Contraint which played music theatre concerts with twentieth century chamber music for children. With the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands he explored the big symphonic repertoire and made several tours to a lot of European countries. Even before he graduated he had been offered a job with the former Police Band of Amsterdam which was conducted by Gerrit Fokkema. Sadly this Band stopped playing. Luckily there was a vacancy as co-principal trumpet player with Het Brabants Orkest. In 1988 he was given this position. Nowadays he is working as the principal trumpet player in this orchestra.

In 1992 he was invited by the former Ministry of Education and Science of the Netherlands to teach at the Institut Seni Indonesia in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for one year. During this period he promoted brass music in a lot of Indonesian capital cities.

Ansambel Tiup Logam (brassensemble) of the Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta, from left to right: Agung Prasetyo (tuba) Taryadi (trumpet) Raymond Vievermanns (trompet) Yunus (horn) and Joko Suprayitno (trombone).

During 6 years he was a member of the brass ensemble "Flexibel Brass". In 1997 the ensemble made a cd "The Power of Brass" which was published by World Wind Music (e-mail: mirawwm@xs4all.nl).

As a major subject and methodical teacher he is committed to the Conservatory of Brabant (Tilburg) which is a part of the Fontys Hogeschool Brabant.

Photo: Raymond Vievermanns & Jan van de Laar

Together with organ player Jan van de Laar he plays original music for trumpet and organ. Next to the common barock an modern repertoire for this combination they are specialized in Dutch music.

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