Ad Colen

Colen was born on July 12th 1961 in Geleen, Holland. In his formative years he played a variety of instruments, concentrating on the guitar for several years, before discovering his everlasting love: the saxophone. In 1990 he graduated from the Hilversum Conservatorium as a jazz musician, under the tuition of Adri van Velzen, Albert Beltman and Ferdinand Povel. Later on he went to New York to study with Dick Oatts. His talent was already in demand in the professional arena.

It was Colen’s versatility that attracted attention. Modern jazz, Big Band, funk, rock and Afro Caribbean music have all passed through his repertoire. With different groups and projects hetoured the United States, Morocco, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Greece . Since 1997 he has released 4 albums with his jazzquartet where he showed his capabilities as a composer and saxophoneplayer.

In 1997 the Ad Colen Quartet released their debut album “Naked” (Via Records). On “Naked” they are accompanied by Michiel Borstlap, winner of the Thelonius Monk Award 1997.‘Eyes Wide Open’ was the next cd that the quartet ( Rob van Bavel, Erik Robaard and Chris Strik ) released in 2000. The album ‘Bitter but Sweet” was released in march 2005 also by Ad’s own label Sweet Briar Music.

Starting from September of 2008, Ad Colen got to work with a new quartet. The new Quartet consists of Gé Bijvoet (winner of the soloist award at the NOS Meervaart Jazz Festival). He was joined by bassist Wiro Mahieu, (winner of the Wessel Ilcken prize) and drummer Yonga Sun (winner of the Dutch Jazz Competition). The new cd ‘free’ was a result of this collaboration and was released in 2009. All cd’s were received very well by the national and international musicpress.

The quartet has played at the international jazzfestivals such as: the North Sea Jazzfestival in the Hague and the JavaJazz festival in Jakarta.

The Erasmushuis in Jakarta invited the group two times (2003, 2006 ) to tour in Indonesia.

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