Micha Hamel (Amsterdam, 1970) works as a composer, theatre maker, poet, performer, script writer and artistic researcher. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Society of Arts.
Micha Hamel graduated in 1994 in composition and conducting at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Soon after, he composed for two contemporary dance companies in London, which led to a commission for the Dutch National Ballet. In 1994, he was awarded the Encouragement Prize for Composition by the City of Amsterdam.
His concert music was performed by many orchestras and ensembles in the Netherlands, among which are the Residentie Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic (Valery Gergiev conducting), the Radio Philharmonic, the Schoenberg Ensemble, the Ives Ensemble and Percussion Group The Hague. He also composed songs and incidental music for more than 15 theatre productions.
In october 2000, Micha Hamel was the resident artist on the festival ‘Dag in de Branding’, during which his main works were performed. In 2008, his tragic operetta Snow White (Nederlandse Reisopera) toured the country with great success. In June 2012 he was appointed “Composer in focus” at the Holland Festival, for which he composed two full-length works: a Requiem for our ideal of civilization, and an interdisciplinary performance inspired by George Hendrik Breitner’s painting The Red Kimono. In 2014, his melodrama A Pure Formality (theatre company Orkater) drew large audiences. His second opera, the contemporary italian belcanto opera Caruso a Cuba (Dutch National Opera, 2019) was praised by the national and international press.
As a conductor, Micha Hamel performed mainly contemporary music in the Netherlands, and classical music with orchestras in Italy, Russia, Luxembourg. Austria and the UK. From 2008 to 2009, he was the artistic director of the Netherlands Music Days, and from 2012 to 2014 he was the principal conductor of Magogo Chamber Orchestra, that, specializing in cross-over and new forms of presentation, was known for its adventourous concert events. Since his activities as a writer and composer had begun to occupy all of his time, Hamel decided in 2016 to quit conducting.
Recently, he began to create a cycle of works on the climate crisis, of which the music theatre piece Het Zwarte Raam (theatre company Orkater, 2021) was the first part. In collaboration with fine artist Jonas Staal, he composed part two: Earth Workers Requiem/Jubilate, a surround electronic work in a visual installation, for Het Noord Brabants Museum and festival November Music, 2024. Part three is to be expected in 2028.
Micha Hamel published five collections of poetry with publisher AtlasContact that stood out for their imaginative use of language and typographic experimentation. He received the Jan Campert Prize for his collection Bewegend doel (2015). Since 2022 he publishes with Pluim publishers, where in 2023 the collection is daar iemand came out. This unique collection of 101 poems had three printings and was nominated for the Herman de Coninck Prize.
In collaboration with animation artist Demian Albers (studio Apvis, Breda) Hamel creates poetic experiences for Virtual Reality. These installations appear at many festivals for technology, contemporary art and literature, and attract diverse audiences. Their most recent work, Together Apart, was selected by the Netherlands Film Festival and awarded in Austria, Berlin and Tokyo.
As an artistic researcher occupied with researching the future of western classical music, Hamel held a professorship at Codarts University for the Arts (Rotterdam) from 2011–2021. The book he and his team wrote about future scenarios for the classical music sector is called Speelruimte voor klassieke muziek in de 21ste eeuw (2016) and contains research reports and philosophical essays. In a second large scale research project, he and his team investigated whether it was possible to use games and gamification to provide concert audiences with extended listening skills, not only applicable for the concert hall, but also for social interaction. This art/science research project, funded by Dutch Research Council (NWO), was a collaboration between Codarts, Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University, and the Willem de Kooning Academy.
As a freelancer, Hamels teaching activities include guest lessons, master classes and lectures. From 2016–2017, Micha Hamel was a visiting teacher at Utrecht University. He is currently working at Utrecht University in a project on writing education in secondary schools. Together with Prof. Els Stronks, he wrote several articles and co-edited two major publications.
As a 2022 Artist in Residence at NIAS, he worked on a book about listening, which still waits to be completed. As the chair of the Arts and Science track in the Society of Arts, he commits himself to develop the national field of transdisciplinary collaborations between art, science and the society at large.
Apart from all this, Hamel is known as a conductor-coach in the AVROTROS television program Maestro, which cheerfully introduces Dutch celebs to classical music.