My interest in jazz and improvisation was sparked at a young age by my father, a professional jazz pianist himself, and I began classical piano lessons at the age of ten. I studied music privately until the age of sixteen when I enrolled in the music program at the Royal Music Conservatory in The Hague, The Netherlands. I studied with pianists Frans Elsen, Rob van Kreeveld, Geoffrey Douglas Madge and Lanny Kho. I graduated in 1991 and left for a post conservatorial study to New York City. There I studied with jazz pianists Barry Harris and Richie Beirach. I returned to the Netherlands in 1993 and started my own trio and continued to collaborate with other musicians. At the same time I co-founded the creative artistic consultancy group ‘Art in Rhythm’. Thereafter I started to facilitate lecture based and experientially based inspiration seminars and training programmes for audiences and companies around the world utilising the art of jazz and improvisation as a tool for transformative learning and leadership development. I have co-created numerous music conversations with many fellow musicians, teachers and peers world-wide. I have now recorded over a dozen CD’s as a leader and has been featured on many recordings as a sideman. I joined forces with jazz musicians Dave Liebman, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Charlie Mariano, Billy Hart, Santi Di Briano, Tony Lakatos, Michael Moore, Tokyo based singer Shanti Snyder, and Dutch jazz artists Ernst Reijseger, Tony Overwater, Wim Kegel, Jesse van Ruller, ECM artist Susanne Abbuehl, singer Fay Claassen, trumpeter Eric Vloeimans and saxophonist Tineke Postma. In the role of creative producer I have produced Postma’s latest two CD’s; the Edison awarded CD ‘The Dawn of Light’ and the CD ‘Sonic Halo’ - a project with saxophonist Greg Osby. Together with the Tineke Postma quartet I have collaborated with many internationally acclaimed musicians such as Grammy winning artist Terri Lyne Carrington, drummer and table player Dan Weiss, bassist Linda Oh, the Dutch Metropole Orchestra and singer Esperanza Spalding. For The Netherlands Dans Theatre in The Hague I have composed several music pieces for their dance repertoire. For choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa I have composed the music for her dance choreography ‘Before After’ which premiered in 2002 at the Dutch National Ballet.
Since 1995 I have performed widely with the European Jazz Trio. Together with bassist Frans van der Hoeven and drummer Roy Dackus I have recorded more than 26 CD’s and the DVD ‘Afternoon in Amsterdam’. Three CDs have been awarded with the Swing Journal Gold Disc award in Japan and the DVD has been awarded with the ‘DVD of the year award’ in 2005. Our tours have brought us to various famous concert halls including the Sapporo Concert Hall, Suntory Hall and Bunkyo Civic Concert Hall in Tokyo, The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the National Concert Hall Taipei, Taipei City, Taiwan, The Organ Hall in Chisinau, and the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea.
The new Marc van Roon Trio with drummer Martijn Vink and bassist Clemens van der Feen was established in 2013 and recorded their first CD ‘Quantum Stories’ in that same year. Both the CD and their high profile concert at the concert Hall in Amsterdam in 2014 have been well received by press and audience.
