Utrecht’s jazz, hip-hop connoisseur Colin Benders, the man behind The Kyteman Orchestra, is also a bit of whizz with modular synthesizers. His music is still full of melody and flow, controlled and balanced, with odes to his hop-hop roots.

As a 17 year old trumpet player Colin Benders already toured Europe, South Africa and Indonesia. At the age of 22 he started Kyteman’s Hiphop Orchestra with which he won various prestigious prizes and awards like the Dutch Pop Prize 2009, an Edison and the Silver Harp. But yet after one year he decided that it was necessary to put an end to this project, despite its enourmous acclamation, in order to explore different musical pathways. With its successor, The Kyteman Orchestra, Benders took a more classical approach with opera singers and a choir which entailed bringing more than 50 people on stage for every concert. Contrasting the meticulous musical organisation of a vast project like that, the next step Benders took with The Kyteman Orchestra was a series of completely improvised concerts : no scores, not a single note, scheme or key was prepared before stepping on stage, except a sort of sign language with which Benders could communicate during the concert with his musicians. 

And once again after The Jam Sessions Benders decided that it was time to go down a very different path. No more shows with a complete orchestra on stage, but just himself with an orchestra hidden in a couple of boxes filled with (mainly analogue) synthesizer modules. With the setup he built, Benders takes a polyphonic/harmonic approach which is both refreshing and reminiscent of the dawn of the synthesizer era.