About Robijn Tilanus

Robijn Tilanus is a Dutch improvisation pianist, improvisation coach, author and composer. She is seen as on of the most inspiring and innovative people in music education. When she was seven years old, she started to play the piano. Later on, she took piano lessons from several renowned piano teachers, such as Jan Wijn, Willem Brons and Ramón Valle. 

Improvisation coach

Robijn Tilanus has given hundreds of workshops, lectures and master classes on improvisation and harmony, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Iceland.

She is the founder of the Improvisation Academy Amsterdam. With her books, workshops and lectures she has inspired thousands of people to start improvising and to grow in it.

Publications

Robijn Tilanus wrote a book on harmony: ‘The Fifth Factor – a practical approach to harmony through improvising at the piano, listening, playing, singing, and composing’. The book is on its sixth edition, more than 20,000 copies are sold. A German translation appeared in 2010, an English version has just appeared in August 2017.

She also wrote a book on improvisation: ‘Free Playing – the seven aspects of improvisation, a guide for everybody who wants to learn how to improvise in a free way’. An English translation is on its way and will appear in the near future.

View book >

Composer

Furthermore, Robijn is also a composer. She published her own composition bundle ‘Again and again’. The bundle contains short, simple compositions for the piano solo. With an incentive on improvisation.

View composition bundle >

Performances

Robijn Tilanus regularly performs as an improvisation pianist, at home as well as abroad. She has her own characteristic style, in which you can hear influences of classical music, salsa, new age, pop, jazz, tango and reggae. Apart from the piano, she also plays the viola, violin, alto recorder, djembe, cajon, conga, bongos and marimba.

View performances >