Paul van der Feen is regarded as one of Holland`s outstanding jazz saxophonists and viewed as an original voice within the Dutch musical landscape.
As a soloing member of the Grammy Award winning Metropole Orkest he played alongside some of music’s most prominent such as Herbie Hancock, John Scofield, Al Jarreau, Gregory Porter, Maria Schneider, Robert Glasper, Chaka Khan and many others, resulting in several acclaimed recordings, most notably a feature role in a Grammy Award winning Vince Mendoza arrangement in 2010.
Paul practically grew up playing with his brothers (Mark, Matthijs and Clemens) with whom he formed the all-brothers Feenbrothers quartet, which initially featured the eleven year old Paul on clarinet. At age 14 he picked up the alto sax and -still a youngster- graduated from the Amsterdam Conservatory in 2002. After spending some time in New York Paul explored several musical genres in depth like Funk, R&B and especially Classical Music, but was drawn back into Jazz by rediscovering John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter and eventually began to discard all forms of musical parochialism.
Paul was a prize winner at the prestigeous White Foundation World Sax Competition in 2004 after which he played and toured with several renowned ensembles like the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, also formed several bands such as Odyssee and initiated many projects and collaborations with the likes of (Dutch) legends Han Bennink and Alex Sipiagin and was graced by two Deloitte Jazz Award nominations besides several prizes as a Metropole musician.
As a Christian Paul has a countercultural philosophy on life and music, about which he sporadicly lectures. These talks emphasize the reasonable hopefulness of a worldview having the Triune Creator at its center. For both life and music bear witness that a man’s soul finds peace in God like a beautiful melody finds harmony in the tonal Trinity.
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