Conductor Olav Dorst

The most important goals I have for the upcoming years with the Ontzetting are playing great music,
develop ourselves and most important: enjoy making music.

Olav’s life as a musician started when he was 8 years old at the local wind band in Ammerzoden,
where he started playing the saxophone. After important years with his teacher Egon Smit he started a saxophone bachelors beside his economics bachelor at Tilburg University. Although he decided toquit conservatoire after 1,5 year, it gave him a great base for playing in all kinds of orchestras afterwards. Some of the highlights were in the Concertgebouw with Auletes (the student wind band of Eindhoven) and at the World Music Contest in 2013 (with St. Petrus en Paulus Wolder-Maastricht) and 2017 (with Emergo from Castricum).

During the years playing in wind bands, the his desire to decide how the music is played, constantly grew and in 2016 he followed his first conducting lessons. That led to a study at the Prins Claus Conservatoire in Groningen between 2017 and 2021, where he studied with Tijmen Botma, Jos Pommer and Klaas van der Woude. On top of that he followed masterclasses with Allan Withington and Ivan Meylemans. And occasionally he follows lessons with Sander Teepen.
He started his conducting career at Muziekvereniging Waterland in Amsterdam in 2019.

At the moment he is also conductor of Jeugdfanfare Altena and Vlijt & Volharding Alphen (NB). Besides conducting he works as a financial for the Ministry of Education Culture and Science.

For more information: https://www.olavdorst.com/