Joep Beving

Joep Beving's love for the piano took a surprising turn in 2014 when music became a way for him to cope with work-related stress. The Dutch artist began to improvise—"simple music for complex emotions," as he describes it. With success: he self-released an album and shared it with family and friends. *Solipsism* didn't remain a private affair after Beving introduced it to the world online in 2015. Within a year, Beving's musical meditations were streamed 85 million times, establishing him as a fixture in the international piano scene. Since then, the *Solipsism* track "Sleeping Lotus" alone has garnered over 75 million clicks on Spotify, and the artist's entire UMG catalog has achieved more than a billion streams. He is now one of the most listened-to pianists in the world. Chance led Beving to Deutsche Grammophon. Christian Badzura, the label's Vice President A&R New Repertoire, who was unaware of Beving's viral success, happened to hear *Solipsism* in his favorite bar in Berlin, where one of the rare vinyl pressings was being played. He contacted the pianist in Amsterdam and signed him. The collaboration began in April 2017 with the release of Beving's DG debut album *Prehension* and continued five months later with a reissue of *Solipsism*. In October 2018, the album *Conatus* was released, featuring new arrangements of pieces from both albums by artists Beving admires—including Eefje de Visser, Andrea Belfi, Thomas Bloch, Tom Trago, and the Cello Octet Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter, Beving released *Henosis*, the final part of his album trilogy that began with *Solipsism*. The recording, released in April 2019, received an Edison Award; it set to music its composer's vision of the interconnectedness of all living beings and the seemingly infinite "unity" that binds everything in the universe. "This is my journey and my search for understanding," he explained. An extended version of *Henosis* was released in February 2020, followed by a new EP, *Joep Beving – The London Session*, the following August. Recorded at Tileyard Studios in London, it features a haunting vocal version of "An Amalgamation Waltz 1839" from *Prehension*, recorded with soprano Grace Davidson and the Sonderling Quartet. Beving's subsequent projects include *Hermetism* (April 2022), an album exploring ancient philosophical ideas about the laws of the universe, and *Post*, a new work for strings, piano, percussion, Ney flute, and Bulgarian women's folk choir. *Post* was released as an EP in April 2023 and addressed themes such as alienation and reconciliation, fragmentation and healing, depression and recovery. The music served as the basis and soundtrack for a short film of the same name by writer and director Hugo Keijzer. In 2025, for the tenth anniversary of *Solipsism*, Beving returned to the studio to re-record the album's repertoire. The atmospheric reinterpretations of the eleven introspective pieces on *Solipsism Redux* preserve the composer's unmistakable, minimalist style and offer an even more intimate glimpse into his sound world. *Solipsism Redux* was released on August 22. A concert recording of Beving's performance in January at the state-of-the-art ConcertLab in Utrecht can be seen on STAGE+. Joep (pronounced "Yoop") Beving was born in 1976 in the small Dutch town of Doetinchem. He discovered his love for music early on and formed his first band at 14. After an injury, he had to discontinue his piano studies and instead studied Public Policy and Administrative Sciences. After his studies, Beving worked in advertising, where he selected and composed music. The foundation for *Solipsism* was laid when he played one of his pieces on a hotel grand piano in Cannes and experienced how his music touched the audience. This experience led him to write new pieces at night in the kitchen of his Amsterdam apartment and record them in single takes. His minimalist style, characterized by quiet emotionality, still defines his music today. 9/2025