Pianist/composer Egbert Derix (Horst, 1969) studied at Conservatorium Maastricht with Irv Rochlin and Frank Giebels and followed lessons in New York with Steve Kuhn, Mulgrew Miller and David Berkman. He was composer-pianist of the Searing Quartet and is known for his collaborations with Bendik Hofseth, Eric Vloeimans, Iain Matthews, Supertamp saxophonist John Helliwell, actor Huub Stapel, Margriet Sjoerdsma and Fish. In 2012, together with Gerard van Maasakkers he won the Annie M.G. Schmidt Prize and his solo piano album Falco (2016) was compared by Musicmaker with Keith Jarrett’s The Cologne Concert. Derix played and wrote the soundtrack for the BNN-Vara documantery Nao ’t Zuuje and recently for the TV series Olympische Dromen. His German song cycle Wandern was recorded in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and he performed the song cycle with the Wiener Kammersymphonie in Vienna for whom Wandern was arranged. His most recent album Dark Night of the Soul – Exit Ego is a double album: One side piano improvisations; The other analogue synthesiser sounds in combination with spoken word by Eckhart Tolle, Bill Hicks and Alan Watts. The album Gardens of Abundance from Egbert Derix and Eric Vloeimans will appear this year. Derix is a teacher at the Fontys Rockacademie in Tilburg and is also a writer of poets and stories.