What was your impression of PMF when you passed the audition and attended the event as an Academy member, and what do you remember the most about your time at PMF?
I remember vividly my audition and the excitement after receiving an invitation a few days later. I was thrilled. To fly all the way to Sapporo and play side by side with the principals of the Vienna Philharmonic and Bernard Haitink was a huge privilege to me.

A quarter-century after the founding of PMF in 1990, there are now around 3,300 alumni worldwide. What impact does PMF have on your current musical life?
The musicians came from all four corners of the world and it struck me how they would gather in the evenings and have fun, make new friends and discuss life and music, and people who used to be strangers to each other were suddenly making connections. A lot of these contacts I still enjoy today.
As a student you wonder: Will I get a job in an orchestra? What type of job should I apply for? Upon arrival in Sapporo I was chosen to play the Scheherazade solo. It was a dream come true for me and it encouraged me to pursue a career as a principal bassoon.

PMF will continue to foster young musicians and offer the inspirational power of music to a broad, global audience, inheriting founder Leonard Bernstein's vision, contributing to the classical music culture of the world, and thereby to world peace. What kind of festival would you like to see it become?
In the Rotterdam Philharmonic we count ourselves amongst those few lucky orchestras in the world who work with Valery Gergiev on a regular basis. He has been our chief conductor for 15 years and is now our honorary conductor. As one of the most active conductors on the planet, and at this point in his career, it is striking that he is taking responsibility and making time to pass that huge experience of live music performance on to the next generation. Especially in times of global challenges, these young musicians are particularly vulnerable. Valery Gergiev is succeeding great conductors like Claudio Abbado and Leonard Bernstein in their efforts for our younger musicians. I hope PMF will be able to attract conductors of this extraordinary league and therefore be able to continue to offer life-changing experiences to many more young talents.

You can enjoy a live webcast of Pieter performing on the Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival's “Revolution!” concert on September 15 at 19:00 CET here. (The concert will subsequently be available here.)

Pieter Nuytten, Bassoon
Pieter Nuytten (b.1980) started bassoon lessons with Koen Coppé and studied at the conservatories of Antwerp, Cologne and Basel with Francis Pollet, Danny d'Haene (contrabassoon), Prof. Georg Klötsch, and Sergio Azzolini.
As a student Nuytten was selected for the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra, and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. Early on, he worked with conductors like Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink and Ivan Fischer.
After playing as a freelancer with professional orchestras in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, Nuytten was on trial for Associated Principal Bassoon with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow in 2004. Subsequently he became ‘basson solo’ with the Orchestra of the Opera de Rouen - Haute Normandie in France, and since 2007 he is Solo bassoonist at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Valery Gergiev. He has appeared as a guest principal with orchestras such as the Radio Philharmonic Hilversum, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the KBS Symphony Orchestra Seoul, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (with Andris Nelsons), and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam (with Daniel Harding). During the 2014-15 season he was a principal in the Rundfunksinfonieorchester Berlin under Marek Janowski. Nuytten is very passionate about chamber music and had the opportunity to work with musicians as Nicholas Daniel, Jonathan Kelly, Priya Mitchell, Natacha Kudritskaya, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Vineta Sareika, and Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden. Pieter participated in Festivals like Classic Con Brio Osnabrück, Storioni Festival Eindhoven, Schiermonnikoog International Chamber Music Festival, and Arbanassi Summer Music (Bulgaria). He is a founding member of the Antwerp-based Focus, the Kölner Kammersolisten, and a regular guest with Oxalys (Brussels).
In 2001, Nuytten made his debut with the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in Bozar, Brussels. Since then he has performed numerous concerti and concertante works by Peter Maxwell Davies, Haydn, Vivaldi, Weber, and Mozart in concert halls in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Germany with conductors such as Roy Goodman, Daniel Kawka, Hubert Buchberger, Ulrich Kern, Nicholas Collon, Ivan Meylemans and Ben Gernon. With the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, he and his wife Marija Pavlovic performed the Duet Concertino by Richard Strauss in the main concert halls in Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp in 2016 and in the Dubrovnik Summer Festival with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra.
Nuytten was featured in a live radio broadcast of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the Collegium Instrumentale Brugense in 2008, and in a radio recording of Weber's Andante and Rondo Ungarese with the Brussels Philharmonic in 2015.
Pieter teaches at the Conservatoires of Rotterdam (Codarts) and Ghent. Pieter initiated and organised the Ghent Bassoon Festival in 2014 and taught masterclasses in Belgium, Linz, Buenos Aires, and Lima.

Other interests
Spending time with my wife and two sons (9 and 2). I also like to cook, I have an aquarium, and I have a PlayStation 3, which I would like to play more often.