Biography
HANS ROOSENSCHOON was born in the Netherlands in 1952, and emigrated with his family to South Africa in 1953. He was taught the cello by Betty Pack, and studied Harmony and Counterpoint with Klaas van Oostveen in Johannesburg. A vital source of inspiration early in his career was Anton Hartman who, as conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of the SABC, undertook the premières of a number of his works.
In 1976 he won an Overseas Scholarship for Composers from the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), which enabled him to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Paul Patterson. There he passed the highest examination, Division V within one year, an achievement that gained him both the Arthur Hinton Prize and the Harvey Lohr Scholarship. His composition Palette was chosen to represent the composition class of the RAM when students from Paris, Graz and Antwerp visited the Academy during an International Visitors Week.
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Since Roosenschoon's return to South Africa in 1978, his music has been performed regularly throughout the country to wide public acclaim - winning the Standard Bank’s “Young Artist of the Year Award” in 1987. In addition, he has received numerous commissions from all of the most significant commissioning bodies in the country. He received a M.Mus in composition cum laude from the Stellenbosch University in 1989 and, two years later, was awarded a Doctorate in Music by the University of Cape Town in 1991. In addition to winning a composition prize from the Department of National Education in 1975 and 1988 respectively, he was the recipient in 1998 of a Merit Award given by the Cape Tercentenary Foundation in acknowledgement for his contribution to music in the Western Cape.
Hans Roosenschoon has also made important contributions to our cultural life in other areas - as an arts administrator, a promoter of South African music, an adjudicator at competitions, and, for some time, as a member of the Board of Directors of SAMRO, and the South African Recording Rights Association Limited (SARRAL).
Roosenschoon has written more than 70 works of which nearly 30 are for symphony orchestra (some with chorus and soloists), 8 for string orchestra, 17 choral works, some chamber music, works for piano and organ, as well as electronic music. Most of these were commissioned by prominent commissioning entities in South Africa, and many were written for special occasions. At least 200 performances and broadcasts, nationally in particular but also internationally, have been documented. His discography includes recordings for the SA Broadcasting Corporation's Transcription Service, as well as commercial recordings of his orchestral, choral, and electronic and chamber music.
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Apart from choral works such as Kô, lat ons sing, Magnificat, Vos estis lux mundi, 
and In principio erat verbum that were performed with much success atinternational competitions, Firebowl was presented to many audiences abroad by the Camarata Chamber Choir of Stockholm. Firebowl was also selected as the best South African choral work sung at the Fourth World Symposium on Choral Music held in Sydney, and is included on a CD featuring 26 Choirs from all over the world.
Other international performances worth mentioning are:
Timbila, performed by the Goldsmith's Youth Orchestra in London, and Mantis, performed by the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra of Chicago.
Clouds Clearing, performed by the SA National Youth Orchestra in Aberdeen and Glasgow, Scotland, as well as at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow. The work was also performed by the Kristiansand Chamber Orchestra of Norway, and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
To open a window, performed by the Chillingirian String Quartet of England at the Stellenbosch Festival in 1995. Furthermore, it was broadcast on Norwegian Radio in a performance by the Odeion String Quartet of Bloemfontein.
Ikonografie, performed in 1992 by the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski during the ISCM 'World Music Days'.
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In a review on Roosenschoon's CD, Ivan Hewett of BBC Radio 3 had the following to say: "You can tell Roosenschoon has an acute musical imagination from the way a small detail as a ticking percussion figure is allowed to grow and to engulf the entire texture. There's an emotional directness about this music that is often naive. But unlike so much cross-cultural music it is never pseudo-naive."
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Hans Roosenschoon Publishing (HaRP)