Randal Corsen

Pianist-composer-arranger Randal Corsen is renowned for his original approach in blending Antillean and Latin-American music with jazz. He is regarded as one of the most important music ambassadors from his island of birth Curaçao. Since moving to the Netherlands, he has gained much recognition for the distinctive way he blends Jazz with Classical, Caribbean and Latin American music. For his debut album ‘Evolushón’ (2004) he received the Edison Jazz Award (the Dutch equivalent to the Grammy’s).
Randal performed on many important venues and festivals in the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Colombia, Belgium, Mexico, Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. In 2008 he performed at the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam, with the international line-up featured on his cd Armonia, (Hargrove, Colley, Saturnino) together with legendary Cuban drummer, Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez, who later invited Randal to join his group ‘Italuba’ in 2 concerts during the London Jazz festival. In 2010 Horacio Hernandez joined Randal once more to perform at the first edition of the Curaçao North Sea Jazz festival.
The past few years Randal has profiled himself mostly as a composer and arranger. He composed the opera ‘Katibu di Shon’ (Slave of Master), named after the book written by Carel de Haseth, who also wrote the libretto for the opera. This opera is an initiative of the famous mezzo-soprano Tania Kross, and will premiere in 2013 in The Netherlands.
Besides all this, Randal was also the musical director and arranger of the ‘Tribute to Doble R’ project of the Metropole Orchestra, in collaboration with IKO Foundation. The TV documentary about this project was shown on tv in the Netherlands and the former Dutch Antilles.