Amba Klapwijk is a composer and creator based in The Hague. She is inspired by landscapes, experiences in nature, poetry, philosophy and visual arts. Sea foam, seasonal changes, light reflections, long subtle sound changes, oscillating intervals and immersiveness fascinate her. Her work includes musical compositions, installations, film, poetry and photography.
In 2019, she was artist-in-residence at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory in America, a biological field station and nature preserve. Her work has been performed by the Herz Ensemble, Ensemble Klang, the Residentie Orkest, the Rotterdam Student Orchestra, Kristia Michael and the Kali Ensemble, and Input Duo. In 2021, her piece the very lightweight thread floats in the moving air was nominated for the Tera de Marez Oyens award, dedicated to recently graduated composers in the Netherlands. In 2022, she received the New Music Now compositieregeling to realize the film dat mij ontmoet, for which she collaborated with philosopher Eli Dorsman and filmmakers VidAmir.
Her teachers during the bachelor and master in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague were Calliope Tsoupaki, Peter Adriaansz, Cornelis de Bondt, Mayke Nas and Yannis Kyriakides. During an Erasmus exchange at the Composition Creative Practice master at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland, she studied with Cathy van Eck and Simon Steen-Andersen. Besides music, she studied philosophy for one year at the Leiden University with two minors in painting and photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK).