Thom Willems

Thom Willems’ music is predominately created for ballet. He studied 1977–1982 at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag electronic music with Jan Boerman and Dick Raaijmakers as well as composition with Louis Andriessen. He works since 1985 with the choreographer William Forsythe, until 2004 with Ballett Frankfurt and from 2005 on with »The Forsythe Company«. Together they have created over 65 works.

His music is used for the creation of many of the most celebrated dance theatre works of our time by William Forsythe, such as »In the middle somewhat elevated« (1987) and »The Loss of Small Detail« (1991). Other key works include »Impressing the Czar« (1988), »Limb’s Theorem« (1990), »A L I E / N A(C)TION« (1992), »Eidos/Telos« (1995), »One Flat Thing, reproduced« (2000), »Sider« (2011) and »Study #3« (2013).

His music in connection with William Forsytheʼs work is featured in the repertoire of virtually every major ballet company in the world including The Mariinsky Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Paris Opera Ballet, Teatro alla Scala Milano, Royal Ballet Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden and Ballet de lʼOpéra de Lyon among many others. In total 66 companies in 25 countries.

William Forsythe’s short film »Solo«, with his music was presented at the 1997 Whitney Biennial. His work is used by fashion designers like Issey Miyake and Gianni Versace and was performed at the opening of Tate Modern, London (2000). In 2007 Thom Willems was involved with Tadao Ando’s research center for design, »21_21 Design Sight« in Tokyo, and in 2008 with Matthew Ritchie’s installation »The Morning Line« for Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.

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