Dirk Bruinsma plays saxophones, bass guitar, electronics and percussion.He is active as a musician and a composer and has been active in the Dutch and international music circuit for about 40 years.
Apart from some composition lessons and piano lessons as a child, he is entirely self taught. Having his roots in experimental rock music, an interest in contemporary composition and free improvisation resulted in a rich oeuvre of works with each time a shifting focus per project. Side paths to sound art and electronic sounds have broadened this even further. However, the free spirit of rock music remained a common thread.
From 1987 onward he was active as both player and composer for groups such as Blast, Sumbur, Otolithen, N-collective (groups; Office-R, DBO and N-ensemble), Brown vs Brown, the Tetzepi bigtet and Pumporgan and has produced more than twenty CD titles on labels as Recommended Records, Cuneiform Records, Lampse, Organic records.
Some of the festivals and venues he performed at are: November Music, North Sea jazz, Gaudeamus, MIMI France, FIMAV Victoriaville, Kitchen New York, Yokohama Jazz, Batie Genève, Borealis Norway and Transmediale Berlin.
Bruinsma wrote music for theater groups, dancers and multi media projects in different countries among them Slovenia, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.
Compositions for soloists and ensembles included amongst others the Spectra ensemble (B), Ensemble Adapter (D), N-ensemble, the Looptail ensemble, Modelo 62 and ensemble De Ereprijs .
As an improvising musician, he worked in projects with musicians such as Fred Frith, Barry Guy, Louis Sclavis, Elliott Sharp, Hans Koch and Jaap Blonk.
He is currently active with his group Pumporgan, the composers collective Monoták from Amsterdam and realizing audiovisual projects as SpOp&Bruinsma in duo with artist Marit Shalem. The latest project has been Tribolumina with Shalem and percussionist Christian Smith for self-built percussion instruments, electronics and live video.