Marius van Paassen made his debut in the large hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in 1982. He appeared frequently as a soloist with symphony orchestras and radio orchestras in the Netherlands and abroad in the years following his debut. He played in all the major halls in the Netherlands. World Wild Life Fund carried on a campaign using his first solo album, "The animal in 20th century piano music." This was an occasion for Van Paassen to be front page news.The CD was broadcast by many radio stations. He was invited to festivals in France, Rumania and the Netherlands. He participated several times in theater productions by the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen.

He stopped performing on stage due to a medical condition in his  right hand in 2014 but has recorded a new album in 2023 and created in recent years a new kind of music with electronics called Pensive moods. Dutch radio – the concertzender - broadcasted some of this music in 2024.

Marius van Paassen (1952) was born in a house designed by architect Piet Elling in Utrecht (the Netherlands). His father was Chris van Paassen (wikipedia) social geographer and his mother Johanna van Rossem. He obtained the gymnasium beta diploma at the 'Utrechts stedelijk gymnasium'. He then studied in Amsterdam.

Radio recordings 

Marius van Paassen made many recordings for Dutch radio: Chopin, Beethoven, Ravel, Debussy,  Brahms, Schumann, Dvorak,  Rubinstein, Granados, Tchaikofsky, Brands Buys, Sigtenhorst Meyer, Britten, Shostakowitch, Stoppelenburg, Andriessen, Poulenc , Broere and others. 

Composer 

Marius van Paassen (1952) grew up in a musical family. At a very young age he already was interested in making his own music, which resulted in a small number of compositions for piano, the instrument he chose to master. Improvisation was a favorite pastime. He started playing his own compositions on recitals in 1988. Dutch radio recorded some of these concerts. In November 2013 the record company Attacca productions released WONDER, a double-CD with a CD-Rom with the sheet music. Compositions around the theme ‘wonder’. Earlier (1999) Attacca released a CD with compositions by Van Paassen, 'The Amsterdam recital', a live recording (VPRO Dutch radio 4) of a recital in Amsterdam.  He performed his compositions in regular concert halls in the Netherlands like the Concertgebouw, the Doelen, Diligentia and special locations like the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Smart Project Place. 

Anton Rubinstein 

One of the projects in his professional life was the project Anton Rubinstein, which started in 1981. Van Paassen tried not only to accomplish a revaluation of the Russian composer Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894), but also a return to a more authentic 19th century style of playing the piano. This resulted in two CD's, radio performances and Rubinstein's piano concertos and chamber-music and solo recitals in a number of European countries (Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Rumania and Sweden, The Netherlands). In 1994, 100 years after Rubinstein's death, Van Paassen gave a master class in St Petersburg (Russia) at the conservatory founded by Rubinstein. In 1996 Van Paassen had the honour to perform parts of "Le Bal' opus 14 by Anton Rubinstein at the inauguration of the old, renovated House of Parliament. Several years his performance of Rubinstein's variations on Yankee Doodle was broadcast on FM radio in the USA on the 4th of July.

Collaborations and recordings 

Van Paassen played chamber music with well-known soloists and members of orchestras like the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Radio Philharmonic and the Dutch Philharmonic Orchestra. He created (text) a series of 150 theatrical concerts for children in collaboration with actress Tamar Baruch and a number of musicians.Conductors he worked with (selection): Ronald Zollman, Lucas Vis, Louis Stotijn, Alexandrou Munteanu, Kenneth Montgomery, Roland Kieft, Anton Kersjes, Hein Jordans, Jules van Hessen, Zsolt Deaky Alexander Anissimov.In 2009 he collaborated with the young composer Paul Oomen and sound artist DJ Salvador Breed with appearances at Earport Amsterdam and EKSTATIC Auditoriums  THE NIGHT CHURCH at 'Smart Project Space’ in Amsterdam.Marius van Paassen made 6 solo albums and many radio recordings, mainly in the Netherlands, but also in Germany and Rumania. 

Teaching 

Marius van Paassen was from 1985 to 2018 piano professor at the conservatory ArtEZ in Enschede and Zwolle (TheNetherlands) and teaches piano now in his private piano school in Amsterdam. He gave master classes in Great Britain (Leeds University), Luxemburg (Conservatoire de musique de la Ville de Luxembourg), The Netherlands (Artez), Portugal : Lisboa: Escola Superior de Musica de Lisboa and Russia (St-Petersburg N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory).

 His teachers

He studied at the Amsterdam conservatory, which in that period was called 'Sweelinck conservatorium'. His teacher was Hans Dercksen. He won a cum laude – with distinction -during his final exam in 1980. Afterwards he studied a year with Willem Brons, then a year with Hans Leygraf in Germany at the 'Hochschule fúr Musik Theater und Medien Hannover'. He attended a course by Daniel Wayenberg devoted to playing piano concerto´s, organized by Dutch radio.

Prizes 

Tromp competition 1980 second prize

Ronde Lutherse kerk prize 1982