Art Marshall composer / arranger

Born on March 15 1942, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Art Marshall originally started his career as an English language teacher at secondary school level. Interested in music from childhood he also studied the clarinet, bass clarinet and basset horn with Ru Otto in Amsterdam, with Aart Rooseboom and in the Hague (now first clarinet in Orchestre de la Suisse Romande). He changed over to the music profession after successfully having auditioned for an orchestral position and as such he played the bass clarinet, clarinet and basset horn professionally for 25 years in symphonic windbands, theatre orchestras, symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles.

He started his professional career in the Amsterdam Police Band, which was the professional Concert Band of the City of Amsterdam

He also taught clarinet and saxophone at the Amsterdam Music Lyceum. An old interest in jazz music prompted him to write a course for improvisation in the Swing and Dixie idioms (ad lib playing) for his music school students entitled Take up Jazz, published in the U.K (Chester Music), Holland, France (Lemoine) and Germany (Zimmermann).

Art Marshall has always had an interest in arranging and he was asked to do jazz pieces for the Amsterdam Police Band and numerous other groups. Some of his symphonic windband arrangements (Original Dixieland One-Step, Oh, Lady be Good) were published, as well as a series of Quartet arrangements for clarinet and SATB Saxophone, on Gershwin themes wich have enjoyed international recognition: Somebody Loves Me, Lady Be Good, The Man I Love, Liza and El Compadre Merinque (Pub: Ardito Music, Amsterdam). For a complete list of his arrangements look under the heading Arrangements


These quartets, among which quite a few in manuscript such as Mood Indigo, Making Whoopee, Memories of You, were originally written as encore pieces for the Amsterdam Clarinet Quartet in which he played the bass clarinet.

Art Marshall translated numerous music books and instrumental methods for piano, trumpet, flute and mouth harp from English to Dutch.


Since 1991 he has left Holland to take up a post as Educational Officer in the Netherlands Antilles where he performs with chamber music groups. He also arranges for local bands and on request. In St. Maarten Art Marshall became a member of the Philipsburg Community Brass Band and since 2002, when Art Marshall came to live in Curacao, he was asked to join the Curacao Police Band.