About Jana
Composer-Performer Jana De Troyer (Ghent, *1994) positions herself at the dynamic borders between styles and disciplines. Concurrently, she deftly switches between her roles of composer, free improviser, instrumentalist, human, sound artist, and bicycle player. Coming from a background as a contemporary saxophonist, Jana has always been curious about further exploring and fusing various modes of expression. This “Experimentierfreude” has brought about a myriad of creative collaborations with composers, musicians and artists from other disciplines such as visual arts, dance and coding.
Her own compositional output consists of both instrumental and electronic music, as well as interactive installations, web art and audiovisual works. She has developed works for a knitting guitar quartet (Fashionista’s), kissers (DU-O), a window cleaner (Putzzwang), a prepared bicycle choir (Noise Maps), and more.
At the core of her work is a deep sonic exploration of non-musical concepts, which often leads to the integration of interdisciplinary means.
An experienced interpreter of scores, Jana strives to translate artist’s ideas as accurately as possible, whether it be conventionally notated or in more open forms such as text scores, video scores or graphical scores. She has studied the Western saxophone canon and greatly relishes assisting and collaborating with living composers on the realisation of new work. Led by the joy of performing, she enters the stage with or without instruments, using whatever is necessary to bring her collaborator’s ideas to life.
Jana’s open mindset can also be seen in her improvisational practice, where she actively combines her classical and contemporary saxophonist training with other sound sources, movement and electronics. She has had the pleasure to play with great improvisers in a range of constellations, varying from duo performances to improvisation orchestras and on stages from Stockholm to Palermo.
She is a member of the improvisation ensemble Bunte Luft Trio, which has released two albums to date, and performed at various festivals and venues in Northern Germany and Belgium. Recently she has also been exploring the sonic properties of the bicycle, performing with a setup of bike, objects and electronics in blurred edges and the Bremer Hausmusikwoche.
Jana De Troyer has been an artist-in-residence at CYCLE-UP (2024, Tartu), EMS (2023, Stockholm), Künstlerhaus Lauenburg (2022), subnetAIR (2022, Salzburg), and Künstlerstadt Kalbe (2017). She is a prizewinner of the Ad Libitum Composition Competition 2025 and the Lions Club Liubice Award 2019. She was the musical director and composer of the music theater piece IT’S A MATCH by Kerstin Steeb, which premiered at Kampnagel in June 2025. In January 2024, a radio feature about her work was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk.
Jana De Troyer holds master's degrees in saxophone (MHL Lübeck, 2018) and in Contemporary Performance and Composition (HfMT Hamburg, 2020). Starting from 2024, she has been teaching the music production software Ableton Live at the Lübeck University of Music. She is an alumna of the renowned stART.up program of the Claussen-Simon Foundation in Hamburg and an active member of the Verband für Aktuelle Musik Hamburg (vamh). She is currently living in Hamburg, Germany.