Ever since, the young Dutchman regularly creates a stir with his special projects outside of the regular concerts on offer, whereby he likes to appeal to all of the observer's senses. The latest example is the yearly happening ''La Nuit n'est pas une chocolat,
'' a tightly directed spectacle in which contemporary music, theatre and cookery fuse with a dance event, according to the flyer for the latest edition last June.
Twaalfhoven: 'I realise that, as a composer I'm responsible not only for the notes on the musicians' stands but for the entire experience of the spectators. Space and sound are inseparable and the visual always influences the aural'. This basic assumption has sent him on a quest for the unity of sound and space and the organic place for an audience within it. Wandering mostly in outer musical fields, collaborating with visual artists, choreographers and directors comes to him as a matter of course.
These last years Twaalfhoven has become fascinated by Japan's aesthetics. He has visited the land of the rising sun twice already, he has given concerts and workshops and has taken lessons in the traditional music. The way the Japanese value the imperfect and the casual is of interest to him.
The importance of the spiritual freedom of the observer that he is so keen on also stems from this oriental approach. Knowing himself to be conditioned by his western background he has made a voluminous document for his graduation from the second phase of his composition studies at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music especially, in which he researches the value of Japanese concepts notably, in view of his own work.
In the meantime he is constantly improving his profile in the Dutch music world without caring about imaginary or concrete borders as seemingly exist between 'high' and 'low' art, stage and audience, professional and amateur.
Twaalfhoven's work has won him several prizes in the Netherlands and abroad, it can be heard regularly on radio and it is performed by orchestras both national and international.