Peter Kleine Schaars

Peter Kleine Schaars, born on August 10th 1962 in Deventer, the Netherlands, started making music at the age of 10. The lack of trombone players in the region gave him the opportunity to quickly gain knowledge of playing many types of music in many different orchestras (symphony orchestras, concert bands, fanfare orchestras, big bands, jazz ensembles, salsa orchestras and even rock bands). At the age of 16, he started making arrangements for some of the bands he played in. Many years later, his all-round musical interest led to completing four musical studies, namely classical trombone, jazz trombone, composition (with Bob Brookmeijer, Rob Pronk and Klaas de Vries), and conducting (Jan Cober). June 1989 he was appointed trombone player, staff arranger and assistant-conductor of the Royal Marine Band of the Dutch Navy. For twelve years the band regularly played many of his compositions and arrangements and the audiences just loved them. He has received numerous commissions from orchestras and soloists, gave many workshops throughout Europe and is often asked to be a guest conductor. After his composition Funky Fuque meets Waddle Waltz won a first prize in a composition contest of the Dutch Institute of Wind Music, his writing career started off. Beside the professional orchestras, amateur orchestras have gradually discovered his music after his first works were published in 1996. His international activities as a composer and conductor were increasingly difficult to combine with a career within the Marine Band, and November 2002 he was offered a part-time job as a sound engineer and product manager with de Haske Publications B.V. His music is published by de Haske (mainly in his own series Peter’s Popular Collection) and he enjoys the writing and conducting activities at home and abroad.