Rolf Straver (The Hague 1956) is a Dutch composer writing chamber music, symphonic and vocal music, often involving the classical guitar, his instrument. He studied musicology in Holland at the Nijmegen University and in the former Soviet Union at the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) State Conservatory named after Rimsky Korsakov. He started composing quite late -aged 49- but was rewarded soon after a first prize winning the 2008 International IGS competition in Italy . The winning work, Quartetto Lirico for guitar duo, violin and cello is published by Berben Edizioni.
Most of his works are neoclassical and polyphonic in a romantic style, favouring extended forms such as sonata, chaconne, fugue, with a cyclical structure between the movements. His guitar concerto in b minor op. 35. provides a good example of his style: a preference for unusual time signatures, melodic writing (mainly diatonical), themes undergoing canonic treatment and often polyphonically combined at the end in dense climaxes. His vocal music is most often based on romantic, forgotten poets like the song cycle op. 8 "Eu quero amar" (I want to love) , twelve Portuguese songs on texts by the Portuguese poetess Florbela Espanca.
His mission as a composer is
-to contribute to a wider use of the classical guitar in chamber music and enlarge its repertoire as a partnering instrument with flute, violin, viola, string quartet, bandoneon etc.
-to set music to vintage poetry in less well known languages (Portuguese, Maltese, Bask, Slovenian etc.)
-to continue and revitalize the tradition of excellent forms, melody and extended tonality into the 21st century
-providing musical background (sound tracks) to documentaries and movies with artistic quality
together with guitarist Ed Galstaun he created in 2010 GiCoN (www.gicon.org), a foundation promoting the classical guitar in concert life,
