Romke Kleefstra


Romke Kleefstra is a musician from the Netherlands. Currently he is a member of Transtilla, Piiptsjilling, Kleefstra|Bakker|Kleefstra, The Alvaret Ensemble and Tsjinlûd.

Biography

Romke Kleefstra was born on 28 July 1972 in Akkrum, Netherlands. From 1992 up to 2007 Kleefstra was singer and songwriter in the indie bands Shatterhole, and . In 2008 Kleefstra formed with his brother Jan Kleefstra, Rutger Zuydervelt and Mariska Baars. Since then he's been in numerous collaborations and projects with his brother, in which his music contains elements of ambient, post-rock, minimalism, drone, modern classical music up to free impro jazz. After releasing Piiptsjilling's first album in 2008 a solid stream of CD's, LP's, DVD's and cassettes followed on labels like Experimedia, Hybernate, Home Normal, Spekk, Low Point, Monotype, Denovali, Midira and Tombed Visions. Besides Piiptsjilling, Romke Kleefstra is a permanent member of groups like The Alvaret Ensemble and Transtilla.
As a member of Piiptsjilling Kleefstra co-initiated the film and music project for the Into The Great Wide Open festival in 2011, with Piiptsjilling, Peter and Heather Broderick, Nils Frahm and Greg Haines. It was succeeded by the half-Icelandic project for the Oerol festival 2012. In 2015 the Frisian collective toured the Netherlands with Japanese film artists of the . In 2016 the Kleefstra's did the same with a similar project called , including the Norwegian musicians Alexander Rishaug, Hilde Marie Holsen and Michael Duch. In 2018 Piiptsjilling teamed up with Sylvain Chaveau, Joacim Badenhorst and Annelies Monseré in the project . Visual artists that worked together in projects with the Kleefstra's are 33one3rd, Haraldur Karlsson, Kei Shichiri, Marco Douma, Rei Hayama, Sabine Bürger, Shinkan Tamaki and Takashi Makino.

Discography

Shatterhole