Jakob Lkk is a composer and improviser using synthesizer, piano, and organ. He studied composition (PhD) at Goldsmiths College in London, organ with Jos van der Kooy at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, and improvisation with Loïc Mallié, Olivier Messiaen's successor at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris. He has received various awards, including the Jur Naessens Music Prize, the Sweelinck-Müller Prize, the first prize at the National Organ Improvisation Competition, and the Prix-Spécial Englert-Marchal.
As an improviser, Jakob Lkk has performed in numerous ensembles with musicians such as percussionist Leonard Eto, trombonist Roland Dahinden, singer Greetje Bijma, guitarist Alfredo Genovesi, and violist Oene van Geel. He has performed at festivals throughout Europe with the project Cathedral Mobile, a composed improvisation structure featuring organ, live electronics, various instruments, and dancers, and with 12-hour and 24-hour improvisation sessions. As a composer, he has developed a series of compositions for installation art, including Humus, in collaboration with visual artist Mariëlle Videler, and Spiraling into Infinity with the artist duo Children of the Light, for MU Hybrid Art House Eindhoven and La Vilette in Paris. In 2026, he will launch a series of audiostreams dedicated to cormorants worldwide, Music for Cormorants.
Besides music, Jakob Lkk studied arthistory and philosophy (both MA, University of Amsterdam) and taught at the Academy for Art and Design St. Joost in Breda and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he initiated Organ in Situ, a collaboration of the Vrije Universiteit (Chair Organ Studies, Prof. Dr Hans Fidom) and the Orgelpark, to enable talented young musicians and artists to work with the organs at the Orgelpark. From 2007 to 2022, Jakob was organist at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, where he collaborated with director Jacqueline Grandjean and artists and musicians to create new music for the cathedral space, such as Giorgio Andreotta Calo, Marinus Boezem, Christian Boltanski, Herman Kolgen, Zeno van den Broek, Christiaan Winter, Claire M. Singer, Ellen Arkbro, Lucrecia Dalt, Nicolas Jaar, Philip Glass.
