On a cold December day, just before Christmas, we meet at TivoliVredenburg for a special encounter with Ron Adelaar. It is safe to say that he is one of the most streamed neo-classical pianists in the Netherlands. Adelaar (64) quit his job as an HR manager a few years ago to focus on his musical career, after he gained a few successes. Together with his son Ivo, he has been building Andante Piano for several years; a small empire that attracts an increasing number of (inter)national piano artists.

Before the café opens, we meet on the street. He tells me about his recently completed walk along the Marskramerpad, a route that took him from Bad Bentheim to the coast near Scheveningen. “A beautiful walk, ideal for clearing your mind and searching for new inspiration,” he explains.

“Music is freedom for me. If I am told to play something exactly according to the rules, I feel like I am locked in a prison.”

Once we have our coffee, the conversation quickly turns to the reason we are here: music. Not trained as a classical pianist, and without a conservatory education, I ask Ron how he sees himself in the musical field. He replies: “For me, music is freedom. If I am told to play something exactly according to the rules, I feel locked up inside a prison. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. When I play or compose, I often think of one of my favourite composers, Gustav Mahler, who made a famous statement: ‘In every performance, a new composition is born.’ I think that’s a beautiful quote,” he says.

“When I play a piece, being in the moment is the most important thing for me. I focus on the place, the space where I am playing, but also on my feelings. That’s the beauty of music, because, even when I compose, I can be strongly influenced by what I’m experiencing. Music for me will always be something I do on intuition.”

“Let’s go back to where it all started. There’s been so much written about you in interviews that I could almost recite your history by heart. Your musical roots lie in the church, as I read, but also with your father. Was he the driving force behind your musical career?”

“Yes, you could say that,” Ron continues. “My father played the flute, and together with another musician, we formed the Eagle Trio for a long time. I remember that there was always music playing at home when I was growing up. My father was a musical omnivore, which I am as well. One day, he came home with an accordion. I took lessons, and I started practicing and learning to read music. That was a lot of fun, and it laid a solid foundation for what I have achieved today. From the beginning, I was always writing my own songs.”

“So you had the talent in your fingers from an early age,” I ask him.

“I think so, yes. At least, my father was also a true musical talent, so it didn’t come from nowhere.”

“Did you never consider pursuing a professional career?”

“No, not really. After the accordion, I had organ lessons for 4 years, but I saw it more as a hobby. I was still in school and had a huge fascination with technology and electronics. So, after high school, I went to MTS (a technical college) to study that, but I always kept music on the side.”

“That’s new information for me,” I tell him.

Ron adds, “Funny, isn’t it? My neighbour was a radio amateur, and I thought that was so cool that I even became a pirate radio DJ for a while. But to answer your question, I’ve always stayed involved with music, and I still enjoy exploring new things, like coming up with counter-melodies using both my left and right hands. In the end, I never went to a conservatory. I just loved technology too much. Later, I studied HR (bachelor) and worked as an HR manager for many years. A very demanding job, where I always saw music as a counterbalance to work.”

He openly talks about the burn-out he experienced in 2016. Just after a major reorganization in which he had a responsible role, his energy completely disappeared.

“The doctor advised me to take a month off. By that time, I had been working as an HR manager at Natuurmomenten for about fifteen years. At the age of 56, I started thinking about ‘what now?’ I spent a lot of time at home, played more piano, and composed quite a few pieces. One day, my son Ivo – who at the time was the label manager for DJ Hardwell – said to me, ‘You should record those pieces and put them on Spotify.’ I replied, ‘I’m not an artist.’ He responded, ‘Then I’ll make you an artist.’ And that’s how it happened.”

“Do you now consider yourself an artist?” I ask him.

Ron nods convincingly. “I do, but more than that, I feel the strangeness of what has come out of it. I looked at my Spotify Wrapped this year and saw that I had been listened to 27 million times. That’s pretty surreal, isn’t it? And when I perform and people come up to me afterwards to say how much they enjoyed it, I do feel like an artist creating something beautiful.”

We continue the interview discussing the way he composes his pieces. “You often use the term ‘self-expression’ when talking about how you compose your music. How would you explain that to the readers?”

“Well, that’s actually a fun story. My roots lie in the church. I was raised Catholic, and during a service, there is always a Eucharistic celebration. The priest gives a sermon, reading the gospel and connecting it to the present time so we can learn from it. Once the sermon is over, there would always be a moment of silence to let the story sink in. Guess who was sitting behind the piano at that moment? I would play an intermezzo during those silences to fill the space and allow the thoughts to settle with the people. And when they asked me what I was playing, I could never answer. I would just sit down and decide on the key, then let myself be guided by what had just been said. It’s a form of self-expression, I guess. I do the same thing at home. I always have music playing, and I constantly think about what kind of atmosphere is present in that moment.”

“Let’s come back to that later,” I say. “Tell me about the moment you decided to fully focus on your music career.”

“At one point, my son said, ‘Let’s make it a project. You record a new piece every week, and we’ll release one every other week. I’ll handle the artwork and distribution.’”

“And this was before you had millions of streams, I assume?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he responds. “At that time, I was already reintegrating with a different role in the organisation – with fewer responsibilities – and it felt more sustainable until retirement. That brought a new balance to my life. Where work always came before music, it was now the other way around. From that point on, we started releasing one piece every week.”

“A clear strategy. By now, you’ve released a lot of work. Where do you get your inspiration from?”

“I come up with it on the spot. Put me behind a piano, and I’ll play an hour of music you’ve never heard before.”

“Can you say you’re proud of everything you’ve made?”

“Well, I definitely hear a development,” Ron says. “I’m curious if you hear that when you listen to my music chronologically.”

“I do hear a clear difference between your first release and now,” I tell him.

“Yes, if you listen to my first released track Butterflies, I’m still very proud of it. But these days, I make more music under the motto ‘less is more,’ with more emotion, focusing on touch and creating pieces that truly tell a story.”

Pavane live performed at Humberto (RTL 4)

Ron and his son initially set the goal of releasing a new single every week at the start of his music career. A strategy that would later be adopted by many artists aiming to land on editorial playlists (curated playlists with millions of followers) on Spotify.

“The first two years, nothing really happened. Every new release was listened to by just a handful of people. Ivo said, ‘Let’s keep going, because one day you might get picked up and it could take off.’ He had faith in it.”

“At some point, that editorial playlist appeared. After I was added to the Magnificent Piano playlist, we celebrated! Once you’re on such a list, Spotify’s algorithms start to notice, and after a few months, I made it onto the Peaceful Piano playlist (the biggest piano playlist on Spotify). Then it all started to take off.”

His success didn’t stop with those two playlists, as is evident from the increasing streaming figures. I ask him: “Do you think you’ve cracked the algorithm by now?”

Ron answers: “I’ve been on the Peaceful Piano playlist eight times with ‘Pavane at number 1, a dream for everyone, but I can see it’s getting harder. There are more fake profiles (ghostwriters) showing up on those lists, and it’s becoming more difficult to get on one. I don’t think you can really crack the algorithm, but I do think that curators start to recognize you if you keep releasing things.”

“I imagine that, alongside your own music, you sometimes want to venture out and experiment. How do you continue to develop as an artist?”

“Well, that’s mainly through performing a lot, and of course, by listening to other music,” he says. “With Andante Piano, we now have 130 pianists releasing their work, and that leads to various collaborations. Recently, I worked on four pieces with Tjeerd Oosterhuis. It’s fantastic to step out of your comfort zone and work together on music. That’s how I keep developing, by gaining new perspectives.”

Before we talk about his upcoming album due to be released this month, I ask him about his view on neo-classical music as background music. I ask, “Many listeners play your music via the editorial playlists. Does it bother you that people use your music as background music?”

“I understand what you mean. I’ve often talked about it with Ivo, but I don’t see my music as ‘muzak’. Of course, I’d love it if more people would appreciate the music and actively search for me on Spotify, but when people tell me, ‘I play your music when I do this or that,’ then for me, it has already fulfilled its most important purpose.”

“A funny anecdote,” Ron continues: “Sometimes I book a massage to relax. One time, when I lied on the table, I heared my music playing through the speakers. I tell the masseuse, ‘Great music,’ and she replies, ‘That’s the Peaceful Piano playlist.’ I say, ‘I know and that song is mine,’ and we both laughed about it.”

“Look, for me, music also has to match the space and atmosphere you’re in. Is it so bad if your music is used as background music?” he asks me.

“It could be that you want to convey a completely different message?” I suggest.

“Well, in that sense, I’m very aware of what a list like Peaceful Piano does. It’s not really the audience that is actively seeking you out, but rather people looking for a specific atmosphere. It’s a very popular list that’s heavily pushed by Spotify. On top of that, these lists have helped me scale down my job at Natuurmomenten and fully focus on music. Let’s put it this way: I’m happy to have my music in these playlists,” he says with a wink and a smile.

I present the following theory to him. That Spotify is increasingly looking for music that fits into their formats. “Recently, Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales released a song titled Neoclassical Massacre, in which he talks about how composers are slowly becoming slaves to the playlists. What do you think about that?”

“First of all, I want to say that I didn’t and still don’t write music with the intention of getting on those playlists. I admit, at first, I tried to load up my profile to get noticed, but for all my music: you have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say that you stand behind it. I don’t release something every week anymore; now it’s every three weeks.”

He continues, “I understand that there are a lot of people who think they can achieve success quickly, but in my opinion, that doesn’t work. With Andante, we are very strict about what we do and don’t release. Building a certain catalog gives us a solid foundation. Sure, I’ve listened to what’s on the Peaceful Piano playlists, but I don’t impose on their rules and what I create.”

And that’s really the most important thing: standing behind your own product. We conclude this interview with his new album: Jouw Verhaal, Mijn Muziek (Your Story, My Music). “So, tell me, what is the story behind this new album?”

“A few years ago, I released an EP titled A Song For You. I have a wonderful wife, with whom I’ve now been married for 37 years. For Christmas, I wrote a song for her, framed the artwork, and placed it under the tree. As she unwrapped it, the song appeared on Spotify. She was so moved by this personal gift that it made me think. Perhaps there were other people for whom I could do something similar, I thought.”

“And how did you start working on it?”

“Last year, I called out to my followers asking if anyone would like to share their story, and whether I could create music based on that. Responses came flooding in from all directions.”

“From all those responses, we eventually selected six stories. Six very beautiful, personal stories, ranging from sad to joyful. And then we decided: ‘Let’s approach this properly.’ We visited all those people to interview them and film them. Afterwards, I asked them to email me a brief version of their story, how they felt about it, and what their lives were like now. I then took those stories, placed them on my music stand, and began composing behind the piano.”

“Which story has stayed with you the most?”

“That would have to be Julie’s story, the last piece which will be released on January 17th. It’s about a 14 year old girl who passed away ten years ago from brainstem cancer. In addition to the immense grief her loving mother feels from losing her daughter, she is doing everything she can to keep Julie’s memory alive (for so many people). She has already written a beautiful book about her. With this piece of music, I was able to contribute to keeping Julie’s memories alive and giving them a future.”

Ron continues: “I arranged to meet her mother at the cemetery, at Julie’s grave. She told me the story there, and we also filmed the video. It was quite intense to experience those raw emotions, I can tell you that.”

“It’s also out of this world to imagine what it feels like to lose a child,” I reply.

“No, that’s unimaginable. Her mother is such a brave person when you see what she has gone through. What’s special is that she told me she finds strength in my music. It turns out she often listens to it at the cemetery when she visits her daughter’s grave. How unbelievably special is that?”

For each piece Ron wrote, he invited the people to his studio in Amsterdam for a first listening session. The responses were all filled with gratitude for the lasting memory he could provide them with.

“Some came with their partner, others alone. I played the piece for them, and we filmed their first reaction as well. The moment they hear it is worth more than gold. The gratitude and emotion… It was very special.”

“What I want to add,” says Ron, “is that what I’m probably most proud of is seeing the impact that music has. For me, music is a language that transcends all others. We can talk a lot, but when you make music, you don’t need to think about it, because it goes straight to your heart.”

Een nieuw begin – Frans
One of the compositions released on the new album

The end of the morning is now approaching. As Ron puts on his coat and we say our goodbyes, his calm, thoughtful energy lingers for a moment. He exudes the air of a man who has found his place, who has discovered peace in the storm of his life. His story, interwoven with music, feels like a reminder that it is never too late to follow your heart, even after years of a different path.

Ron Adelaar, the man who breathes music and translates stories into melodies, has shown me more than just notes and rhythms. He has shown how art, even the most intimate and vulnerable, can leave something lasting behind. “Music is a language that transcends all others,” he said. I believe him wholeheartedly.