Performace Artist and Improvising Pianist

Marnix van de Poll is performance artist and pianist. He is well acquainted with it work by Simeon ten Holt. Many times he worked as an artist-in-residence in the small house and on the beautiful Steinway grand piano of Simeon, where he also gave many intimate concerts with work by the master. Free improvisations from these concert series came out on his first album In Simeon’s House, with attention on national TV and radio both in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Marnix gave concerts on the ferry about the IJ in Amsterdam and outside in the Japanese Garden in The Hague. He also gave concerts, performances and workshops Oerol, The Parade, Karavaan Festival, Terug naar het begin Festival. During the pandemic, he lived for half a year in the small southern Slovenian village of Fara. There he gave concerts via the internet and for his neighbors. From this came his second album, Winter in Fara.

For his project Hello World, Marnix recorded soundscapes in nature, which He interactively combines with his own improvisations. He spent a period in Buenos Aires where he performed with modern dancers in the National Museum of Contemporary Art MACBA, an impro-laboratory as he also curated, and in which he participated, in the Bimhuis Amsterdam.

Marnix toured the country with his museum performance art project I’m Listening. Marnix listened, visitors told their stories. In the Listening pavilion, designed by Dré Wapenaar, Marnix had one-on-one conversations in which he started from his own vulnerability. After each conversation Marnix answered with a free improvisation. The project visited, among others: Kröller-Müller, Bonnefanten, Singer Laren, Museum MORE, Museum Arnhem. NPO Classical broadcast many improvisations of this project and a selection came out on his third album I’m Listening.

Currently Marnix tours The Netherlands with the concert series Canto Kaarslicht Concerten. He plays the Canto Ostinato by Simeon ten Holt in a solo-version amidst many candles.