Roland van Straaten

Roland van Straaten, who comes from a Swiss-Dutch family, was born and raised in Zurich, Switzerland. He spent some years of his childhood in the United States, Italy and Germany before studying music at Zurich's "Konservatorium", at the University of Zurich and at the "Conservatoire" in Geneva, where he worked under Hans-Ulrich Lehmann (composition), Yehosha Lakner (theory), and Spiro Thomatos and Maria-Livia Sao-Marcos (classical guitar). He has also been deeply inspired by his work with jazz, contemporary music, overtone singing and experimental theatre. In his solo activities, however, it is the harmonica that has captured Straaten's artistic attention. Yet here, too, he has refused to be constrained by tradition, developing new playing techniques and collaborating on new variations of the instrument to free himself from its more conventional sounds and styles.