Fred van Straten

Fred van Straten was born in Athens, Greece in 1964 under the name of Aristo Tzignolis. He went to holland as a young boy, where he was adopted by dutch parents. (so he ended up with two names, two nationalities, two passports, two families and too country's to live in!) Fred took music-theory and arranging lessons with conductor Rogier van Otterloo, pianolessons with Henk Elkerbout and Jules de Corte and trumpet lessons with Jeff Reynolds. After that he studied composing and arranging with filmcomposer and conductor Michael Kamen.Since 1980 he's been a recording artist, playing trumpet and piano, and arranging in studio's for more than 250 cd recordings, about 100 movies and more than 800 jingles and radio and tv commercials. Fred recorded in the studio with singers, bands and producers like Boris, Berget Lewis, Karin Bloemen, Candy Dulfer, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Total Touch, Jeroen van de Boom, Theo Maasen, Anita Meijer, Jody Bernal, Angela Groothuizen, Wolter Kroes, Astrid Nijgh, Fay Lovsky, Bart de Graaf, Herman Brood, Jules de Corte, Rogier van Otterloo, Roog, Koos Alberts, Tatjana Simic, Hans Dorrestein, Peter van Hintum, Jay Colin, Sandra Reemer, Edsilia Rombley, Boudewijn de Groot, Volkan Baydar, Theo Nijland, Jan Rot, Rose, Marcel Kapteijn, Mieke Giga, Jan Rot, Gordon, Gerard Joling, Sam, Nina June, G-Race, Anthonie Kamerling, Mendoza dance party, Jacob Klaasse, Lee Towers, Jochem Fluitsma, Erik van Tijn, Fons Merkies, Tjeerd Oosterhuis, Katja Schuurman, Arno Kolenbrander, and many others.In 1995 he started his own hornsection called the Amstelhorns, together with trombonist Frans Cornelissen and saxplayer Arjan Muusz. (www.amstelhorns.com)He's been arranging and conducting orchestra's for events and musicalproductions in Holland, Germany and Greece like the re-opening of the Royal Theatre Carre, musicals like the last 5 years, pluk van de petteflet, Zorba the Greek and recently the new Annie M.G. Schmidt production Floddertje.Fred leads as a keyboardplayer and arranger since many years the Eventband (www.eventband.nl) wich he plays on demand events with.In Germany he is the bandleader and keyboardplayer of the band of the Turkish-German singer Volkan Baydar (www.volkan-baydar.de)He has his own worldmusicorchestra called 'Aristo and friends' (www.aristoandfriends.com)Fred is a in-home arranger and studiomusician at the freshbeat recording studio in Amsterdam runned by producer Klaas Berings. (www.freshbeat.net)He is bandleader, arranger and pianist of the band 'm.a.a.r.t.' (www.maartjehoutzager.nl)Fred is teaching music-theory at the Rockacademy Tilburg and the pop-conservatory of Alkmaar.From december 2008 Fred plays trumpet in the band of the dutch soul singer Boris. (www.borismusic.nl)