Wilco Oomkes

Highly inspired by world music, Wilco Oomkes went to the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where he trained as a classical accordionist (with a minor in jazz) and graduated cum laude with special distinction in "artistic and diverse musicianship and entrepreneurship". Besides his studies at the conservatoire, he travelled through the Balkans to learn from the musicians in the villages and from the conservatoire in Plovdiv. He works as a freelance accordionist, arranger/composer, and session musician and performs regularly in theatre productions (NITE, Club Guy & Roni, Lichtbende), on classical music stages (Asko|Schönberg ensemble, ensemble KLANG), with his ensemble Butwhatabout and with his bands OT AZOJ & The Balkan Brothers. In addition, Wilco has arranged and composed music from folk to jazz and from theatre to classical music - often in a combination of genres, in and for a variety of settings. Recent work: 3 Balkan-inspired compositions for wind band and Lichtbende (Fly me to the moon 2020 and Ringring 2021). In 2021 he released the EP Voor de Poes (For the cat) with Dutch songs for his sick cat under the name VERS.

DNO debut