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Tiësto

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Tiësto is the stage name of Tijs Verwest, born in Breda in 1969. As a teenager he listened to the radio shows of Ferry Maat and Ben Liebrand, and at fourteen he was already DJing at school parties. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was a DJ in clubs in Breda and the surrounding area, at first playing new beat and acid house. From 1994 he also made his own records, at first hardcore and gabber under other names. In 1997 he started the label Black Hole Recordings with Arny Bink, on which his mix series Magik and In Search of Sunrise appeared.

Music and breakthrough

With Ferry Corsten he made trance as Gouryella, and he worked on other projects with Armin van Buuren. His remix of Silence by Delerium brought him to a large audience around 2000. In 2001 came his first solo album, In My Memory, and from 2002 to 2004 he was voted the world's best DJ three years in a row. In 2003 he became the first DJ to give a solo concert in a packed GelreDome, where he opened with his version of Adagio for Strings. That piece became the starting point for his music at the opening of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where he was the first DJ to perform live. Among the albums that followed were Just Be (2004), Elements of Life (2007) and Kaleidoscope (2009).

Influence

Tiësto made trance big: long build-ups, floating synthesizer sounds and euphoric peaks, made for enormous halls. He showed that a DJ could fill a stadium single-handedly. In doing so he became one of the Dutch DJs who made electronic dance music known around the world.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Adagio for Strings and notice how Tiësto turns a well-known classical piece by Samuel Barber into dance music. Hear how the melody first sounds softly and how the beat then comes in and builds the tension towards a peak.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsDutch trance