Fred Roeske
Fredrik Jan "Fred" Roeske was a Dutch pianist and conductor. He was born in Amsterdam on 27 October 1868, the son of seaman Pieter Hermanus Roeske and Christina Johanna Heineker. His family lived for a long period on Amsterdam's Zeedijk. He married Julia Lensing, and they had three daughters. One of them, Frieda Roeske, studied violin at the conservatory and became a violinist and violin teacher.
Roeske studied at the Amsterdam music school of the Society for the Promotion of Music. He took piano lessons from Blank and Van der Eyken and studied harmony with Frans Coenen. His further teachers included Cornelis van der Linden, Henri Viotta and Bernard Zweers.
Choral conducting remained the central focus of his career. With the men's choir Kunst door Oefening, he won national and international prizes in Amsterdam in 1893, Liège in 1895, and Saint-Gilles. He also led the Zanglust singing society, the Teachers' Choir, the Lutheran Choir, and the Apollo singing society and men's choir, which he conducted from 1896 to 1953. As director of the Bussum branch of the Society for the Promotion of Music, he taught singing and piano, later adding harmony, composition and choral conducting to his teaching.
From early 1899 until 1901, Roeske directed the Amsterdam Orchestral Association and served as bandmaster of the civic guard. He later led the United Singers and Musis Sacrum in Amsterdam, as well as the Richard Hol Men's Choir in The Hague. Willem van Laar was one of his principal pupils.
Roeske also composed from an early stage. His works included the Legend for string orchestra, numerous choral pieces, and a cantata for soprano, men's choir, organ and orchestra. A known early work was At the Setting of the Little Sun.
On 7 September 1898, Roeske conducted 1,500 female singers on Dam Square, accompanied by five bands, in an aubade during the inauguration celebrations of Queen Wilhelmina. He again directed a large choir on 31 August 1948, when Wilhelmina abdicated.
In 1938, Wilhelmina awarded him the Silver Medal of Honour for Arts and Sciences of the House Order of Orange. He became an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau and the Order of Vasa in 1953. Amsterdam named Fred Roeske Street after him in 1977.
Roeske died in the Wilhelmina Hospital in Amsterdam on 10 March 1961, shortly after being admitted. He was buried at De Nieuwe Ooster cemetery.