Marco Blaauw

Trumpeter Marco Blaauw was born in 1965 in Lichtenvoorde in the Netherlands. Performing as an internationally sought-after for more than 30 years, he is also a longstanding member of the Cologne-based Ensemble Musikfabrik. His artistic work focuses on contemporary music as well as on the development of the trumpet and its playing techniques. To this end, he collaborates with established and young contemporary composers. Numerous works have been written specifically for him, including pieces by Peter Eötvös, Georg Friedrich Haas, Olga Neuwirth, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, and John In 2026, he premiered Georges Aperghis’s Trompe-oreille at the Présences Festival in Paris. Marco Blaauw collaborated closely with Karlheinz Stockhausen: he performed Michael’s Journey Around the Earth, gave the world premiere of Harmonies from the Klang cycle at the 2008 BBC Proms, and took on several solo roles in Stockhausen’s opera cycle Licht. Together with La Monte Young, he developed a trumpet version of The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer and performed the work throughout Europe. In 2015, Marco Blaauw founded the trumpet ensemble The Monochrome Project, which explores extended concert formats. In 2016, he initiated Global Breath, a worldwide research project on the trumpet. In addition to his work as a musician, Blaauw is active as a curator, educator, composer, and producer, among other roles. This year, he assumed artistic direction of the contemporary music festival “Klangspuren Schwaz” in Tyrol. He has been honored for his work with such awards as the Polish Orpheus Prize, the Karel de Grote Oeuvreprijs from the City of Nijmegen, the Karl Sczuka Prize from SWR, and the Palma Ars Acustica Radio Art Prize from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). His work is documented on six solo CDs, among other recordings; in 2014 he received the German Record Critics’ Award.

Lucerne Festival debut on 21 August 2021 with Rebecca Saunders’s blaauw; at his most recent appearance, on 18 November 2023, a work by Saunders was also on the program: Moving Picture 946-3 Kyoto.

August 2026