About
Jan Willem de With is an award-winning German-Dutch film composer, producer, and musician currently based in London. His soundtracks and film productions have been internationally screened and performed at film festivals and events in Cannes, London, New York, Prague, Cologne, and Zurich. For some of his productions, he has collaborated with musicians and ensembles such as "The City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra”, “Budapest Scoring Symphonic Orchestra”, “State Orchestra Halle", and Eurovision singer-songwriter Chiara Dubey. These collaborations have led to work in locations such as Abbey Road Studios London, Air-Edel Studio London, and Smecky Studios Prague.
One of his most important achievements was receiving the “German Film Music Award” in the category “Best Music For Short-Film 2016” for his music to the animation movie “Little Infinity”.
Jan Willem´s musical career started at the early age of five by giving concerts and taking professional music lessons. He was involved in several musical projects, events, bands, choirs, as a musician, conductor, singer, and actor. Early on, composing and conducting became an important output of his creative work. After starting a two-year apprenticeship as a church-musician and choir-conductor at the age of 14, he conducted several choirs and performed his music and arrangements. Besides school, he went to the University for Music and Theatre Hamburg where he was studying composition and orchestration with Prof. Dr Wolfgang Andreas Schultz (a former student of György Ligeti).
Jan Willem first received nationwide attention in the German TV composition competition “Dein Song” by KIKA/ZDF in 2014 where he was selected to be one of 16 finalists to perform his composition on live TV.
Through public and private masterclasses as well as composition and orchestration workshops, Jan Willem learned alongside professionals such as Balz Bachmann, Marcel Vaid, Benjamin Köthe. In 2014, he was awarded a young talent scholarship by the German film foundation “Nordmedia" for “Media Sound Hamburg” where he could learn from composers such as Javier Navarette, Oliviere Deriviere, Chris Huelsbeck or Lisle Moore.
Jan Willem studied film music and composition at several Schools and Conservatoires such as the School Of Entertainment and Technology (apprenticeship as a composer for media) and Zurich University Of Arts (Bachelor in Composition for Film, Theatre and Media) with professors such as Niki Reiser, Peter Scherer, Rodolphe Schacher, Till Löffler, Benjamin Lang, André Bellmont, Matthias Steinauer. He finished his master degree in “Composition for Screen” with distinction at the Royal College Of Music in London (professors: Vasco Hexel, Enrica Sciandrone, Ken Hesketh, Francis Shaw, Gilbert Nouno) for which he was awarded a german talent scholarship by “DAAD” (“Deutscher Akademischer Auslandsdienst”). Here, he came also in contact with film composers such as George Fenton, Michael Giacchino, and Harry Gregson-Williams during college intern masterclasses.
As a conductor, his main focus is on film scores. Most recently he conducted the Wuppertal Symphonic Orchestra (who worked with Composers such as Hans Zimmer) for a live-to-picture film music concert.
Besides composition, Jan Willem is working as a lecturer for film music at London South Bank University, festivals and congresses (as such as the Medienforum Mittweida, Raindance Film Festival or Lüneburg Short-Film Festival IM.KASTEN) to develop young filmmakers understanding about the use of sound and music, as well as the collaborative aspects and demands in film productions.
