Derek Bermel
From New York
Derek Bermel has one upcoming show in the Netherlands: on November 4, 2026 at Splendor Amsterdam, Amsterdam.
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About
Derek Bermel writes concert music that sounds like he's been listening to everything at once. A New York born composer, clarinetist and conductor, he mixes world music, funk and jazz into a classical toolkit, and he has the passport stamps to back it up: Bulgaria for Thracian folk style, Ghana for Lobi xylophone, Brazil for caxixi, plus a stretch in Jerusalem studying ethnomusicology. His breakout pieces include Natural Selection, a set of animal portraits for baritone and ensemble, and Voices, a clarinet concerto he wrote for himself to play. Elsewhere you'll find the Migration Series, which pairs jazz band and orchestra and takes its cue from Jacob Lawrence's paintings, and Soul Garden, where a solo viola uses quarter tones and slides to imitate a gospel singer. He also plays rock and funk with his own group TONK and sings and plays keyboards in the band Peace by Piece. More recently he has teamed up with novelist Sandra Cisneros to turn The House on Mango Street into an orchestral suite and an opera.
