I removed the following from my website, had enough of all that looking back and reflecting. From now on just looking forward.
Tanke's musicianship can be understood knowing that as a teenager a favourite album of his was, besides Bach, Messiaen and Webern, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. In addition he was overwhelmed by John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and intrigued by Frank Zappa's albums, Stockhausen's Aus den sieben Tagen, a recital with Indian classical music in his hometown Hengelo and pianist Cecil Taylor.
For some decades Willem Tanke was puzzled by his musical identity, because he could not relate the nature of his own improvisations and compositions to being a Western classical organist and theorist. Only in the past few years he managed to overcome conventions of music life and integrate seemingly contradictory sides of his musicianship, knowing that they are essentially related and feeling that they make each other stronger.
