Biography
Dirk Johan Stromberg is an American musician. His passions in music are inspired by a nomadic lifestyle that began at birth. Having grown up in Europe (Great Britain, Switzerland and The Netherlands) music as a common language of expression is a strong theme in his music. Later, having lived in Texas and New York City, the vast cultural divide and the intolerable similarities between Europe and the United States along with the book Tropendrift he was driven to South East Asia, which has had a profound influence on his music and philosophy.
His musical influences come from classical, jazz, improvised, pop, music of South Asia, the Far East and the avant-guard. Being interested in the spontaneity and intimacy in performance, his compositional style, performance and research are based on combinations of exploring sound pallets of acoustic instruments and their integrations with technology through the use of artificial intelligence and re-synthesis techniques in reactive, semi-improvised-aleatoric performances.
Dirk’s music has been performed in Europe, Asia and the United States including; Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Bucharest, Istanbul, Amsterdam and New York City. His music appears on several compilations and a two CD set of Dirk’s composition Tropendrift released by In de Knipscheer based on the poetry of Dutch poet Albert Hagenaars.
He has been a composer in residence at STEIM (Studio for Electronic Instrumental Music) and Brooklyn Center for Computer Music and has received recognition for his work from ISAM (Institute for Study in American Music) and MATA (Music At The Anthology).
Dirk Stromberg also works as a production consultant in music and performer and has produced several CDs and DVD's of electro-acoustic and acoustic music and performs regularly internationally.
He holds a Bachelor of Music from Texas Tech University and a Masters of Music from Brooklyn College, CUNY. He is currently one of the executive directors and founders of the Contemporary music Festival of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and is on faculty at Saigon Technology University.Click here for more information