Badings, Henk, 1907-1987

Henk Badings was a composer of Indonesian-Dutch origin, born on January 17, 1907, in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies. His father, Herman Louis Johan Badings, was an officer in the Dutch East Indies army. Unfortunately, Hendrik Herman Badings became an orphan at the age of seven.

In 1915, he returned to the Netherlands and began learning the violin and piano. However, his family discouraged him from pursuing a career in music. He went on to study at the Delft Polytechnical Institute (later the Technical University) and graduated in 1931. He worked as a mining engineer and paleontologist at Delft until 1937, after which he devoted his life to music. Although largely self-taught, Badings became a student of Willem Pijper, the most respected Dutch composer of the time. However, their musical views varied significantly, and after Pijper tried to discourage Badings from pursuing a career as a composer, Badings broke off contact. His first cello concerto premiered at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1930, marking his initial significant musical success. In addition to composing, Badings taught and lectured in the Netherlands and abroad, served on competition juries, and authored several books. In 1942, Badings was accused of collaborating with the Nazi occupation forces and was briefly barred from professional musical activities. He was reinstated in 1947. Badings' oeuvre includes a wide range of genres, from opera to electronic music, from film music to 14 symphonies, pieces for wind orchestras and chamber ensembles. He received prestigious commissions, such as those for the hundredth anniversary of the Vienna Philharmonic and the sixtieth of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

At the time of his death on June 26, 1987, in Maarheeze, Netherlands, he had created over a thousand pieces.