Marco Blaauw is a Dutch trumpet soloist known for his work in the field of new music and with Cologne-based contemporary music group Ensemble Musikfabrik. He plays a double bell trumpet, an invention that has allowed for numerous new compositions for trumpet, including those by Ernst von Siemens Music Prize winner, Rebecca Saunders. Blaauw is a consistent faculty member at the Darmstadt Summer Course, the Stockhausen Courses Kürten, the Lucerne Festival, and the Chosen Vale International Trumpet Seminar. Biography Marco Blaauw was born September 23, 1965 in Lichtenvoorde, the Netherlands, and began playing trumpet at a young age in the local band. As a young student, Blaauw attended the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and later studied with Pierre Thibaud and Markus Stockhausen. Blaauw has an extensive solo career, particularly in the contemporary, new, and improvised music scenes. He has collaborated on and premiered several pieces for trumpet solo and ensemble and is well known for his work with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Marco was also a founding member of contemporary music group Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne, Germany, and appears on several recordings with the ensemble. Blaauw has performed solo with numerous orchestras and new music ensembles, including the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Klangforum Wien, London Sinfonietta, and Asko|Schönberg Ensemble. He has also performed at festivals such as Musikfest Berlin, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and more. The focus of Marco Blaauw's work is the further development of the trumpet, its technique, and its repertoire. He works in close collaboration both with the established and younger composers of our time, and many works have been written especially for Blaauw or have been inspired by his playing, including Peter Eötvös, Rebecca Saunders, Richard Ayres, Isabel Mundry, Hanna Kulenty, Georg Friedrich Haas, John Zorn, and Wolfgang Rihm. Double bell trumpet Marco Blaauw plays a double bell trumpet. The first model was made by Dieter Gaertner in Düren, Germany, with whom Blaauw had previously worked on various C trumpets. This instrument inspired composer Péter Eötvös to write the first piece for the instrument – "Snatches of a Conversation" – which Blaauw premiered and recorded. In the relatively short life of the double bell trumpet, Marco Blaauw has generated a huge amount of new repertoire for the instrument and helped spearhead development of other double bell brass instruments