Warrant Officer 1 (Retd) Jan van Lienden

From 25th October 2008 the Historical Drum Corps of the Royal Dutch Military Police (Marechaussee) has Jan van Lienden, a former percussionist of the Band, as its conductor. He is also performing as Drum Major.

From his youth Jan has been active in music and he started his musical career at the “Harmonie Orkest Utrecht” (the Utrecht Woodwind Band), followed by a long duration membership of the Band “de Bazuin” from the town of Utrecht as well.

At the age of 19 he enlisted as a regular soldier in the Royal Dutch Military Police, where he spent his complete military career working in various specific jobs.

In the meantime he obtained all percussion diplomas, of which several as “cum laude”; he studied the trumpet for a number of years, obtained the instructor diploma and was co-author of the “Manual for Drum Majors”, a publication of the Dutch society of band conductors.

After a number of years the then Drum Corps of the Royal Dutch Military Police (Marechaussee) was converted into an instrumentation of a marching band and the regular staff of the Royal Dutch Military Police (Marechaussee) was enabled to apply for a position in the Band. 

The result for Jan was, that he received a position in military music and being in that position he travelled with the Band all over the world with as its highlights performances in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia and Australia. 

As regarding the speciality of show, drill and choreography, he attended the NCO course in this field and received as its final subject to design a choreography for the marching band of the Royal Dutch Air Force. For that reason it often happens that Jan is hired on a project basis by bands in order to prepare them for contests: thus they work on a drill design as perfect as possible. 

During his musical career het successfully conducted several bands, form drum corps to marching bands, both in lower and higher categories, with beautiful results during national contests and the World Music Contest in Kerkrade.

His musical compositions are published and Jan is officially registered as composer at the Dutch musical copyrights office; if necessary he produces music for Historical Drum Corps of the Royal Dutch Military Police (Marechaussee).

Warrant Officer 1 (Retd) Jan van Lienden: a highly professional musical leader with passion for his job, who is always working in order to get the maximum possible result from his musicians but taking into account everybody’s musical abilities.