Vincent van Gelder

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Flight of the bumblebee (arr. G. Cziffra)

From the recording Flight of the bumblebee (arr. G. Cziffra)

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Flight of the bumblebee (arr. G. Cziffra)
by Vincent van Gelder

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Vincent van Gelder

Biography

Dr. Vincent van Gelder was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He won top prizes in several national and international piano competitions, including the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition, New York Artist International Competition, and St. Louis Artist Presentation competition. He has performed in many states in the US, as well as multiple countries throughout Europe, a notable example being a well-reviewed solo recital at Carnegie Hall. In 2008 he nearly lost the index finger of his left hand, but thanks to a successful surgery he made a near full recovery.

He has been a soloist with several orchestras, and worked with conductors such as Hans Vonk. As a chamber pianist Vincent, performed with musicians like Dmitri Sitkovetski, members of the Ciompi Quartet, Red Clay Quartet, and his wife, Dr. Ināra Zandmane. He has collaborated with several composers including the Argentinean composer Alejandro Rutty, who wrote a piano concerto for him that premiered at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Symphony orchestra.

Highly acclaimed performances were in London, England, the Van Cliburn Festival, and Harpa Hall in Iceland. As a composer, he won the 2025 International Fidelio Piano Composition Competition in Madrid, Spain. Dr. van Gelder’s recordings have been played on radio and tv stations in the US as well as The Netherlands.

In June of 2018 he performed at Harpa Hall in Reykjavik Iceland, where he performed the world premiere of one of his own works, ‘Guardians of Iceland-Eylin’s Journey’—a large, multi-movement piece based on Icelandic legends, a piano performance accompanied by artwork from his then 13 year old daughter, Natalie van Gelder. Their next project, ‘Ardenuir: The Stone in the Sword,’ saw its premiere in 2022 at the Virginia Somerville Sutton Theatre in Greensboro, North Carolina. They subsequently toured many concert halls in North Carolina.

In September 2024, Natalie published her first animated short film, ‘Home Cooked Meals’, with an original soundtrack written and performed by Vincent van Gelder. This short film is a featured animation at the NC Film Festival, the Cary Film Festival, the Raleigh Film and Art Festival, and OUT at the Movies International Film Festival.

In 2024, Dr. van Gelder was invited to do record works by Jacobo Palm and other Caribbean composers for the Palm Foundation in The Netherlands. This is an ongoing project.

Dr. van Gelder studied in Holland, Latvia, and the US, receiving two Masters and subsequently a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. His most influential teachers were Leslie Howard, Czerny-Stefanska, Teofils Bikis, Arnis Zandmanis, Wilfred Delphin, and Richard Cass.

He has been a member of the piano faculty at Duke University. He is the founder and president of the Triad Institute for Young Musicians.

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