Jan-Hendrik Harley

biografia

Composer, arranger, editor, instrumentalist, teacher and scholar Jan-Hendrik Harley started his musical journey at the age of six with violin and piano lessons. He spent his formative years balancing sport, academics and cultural activities, cultivating a wide base of interests that would ultimately benefit him later in his musical studies. As an undergraduate student at the University of Stellenbosch, Jan-Hendrik realized the importance of interconnectivity and the relations between the different fields within musical studies. Here he also developed a keen interest in early music (1500-1750), an aspect of his professional palette that would be refined while studying under the world- renowned early music specialist Paul Leenhouts at the University of North Texas. He balances performing on modern violin and viola with Baroque violin, -viola and -guitar.

As composer Jan-Hendrik has enjoyed premieres on four continents by student- and professional groups, of works ranging from intimate chamber music pieces to electroacoustic- and bigger orchestral pieces. He has done production work on numerous soundtracks and albums, his main focus being composition, orchestration and score preparation. To date Jan-Hendrik has scored and produced the complete soundtracks to three feature length films and two short films, one of which earned second place at the 2015 Cape Town 48hr film festival. He currently lives in Stellenbosch with his wife, where he freelances as instrumentalist, composer, arranger and teacher.


     
  Jan-Hendrik Harley