Rob Madna was born in The Hague, the Netherlands. Madna was  a complete autodidact, who learned to play by listening to  whatever records happened to be around the house: music of  Teddy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, or a recording of George  Gershwin’s ‘Porgy and Bess.’ Together with neighborhood friends Ack en Jerry van Rooijen,  Rob listened as much as he could to jazz and dance orchestras  during the Second World War. After the war he heard the latest  music from America, including bebop, which was to have a deep  impact on his further musical growth. Madna progressed quickly,  and from the age of sixteen he regularly played in public, at times  substituting for local professionals, such as Rob Pronk. Apart from submerging himself in music, Madna developed a  fascination for mathematics, and he decided to pursue a career  as a mathematician rather than a musician. Rob always shunned  the spotlights and a life on the road didn’t appeal to him. With  what he considered his Asian relativism, he did not seek public  recognition and much of his musical life would take place in  relative invisibility. Nevertheless, Madna did perform with many  jazz outfits, and subbed in many orchestras. He was deeply  respected by his fellow musicians and those listeners who knew  him. In 1985 Rob Madna became involved in music full time, accepting  to teach jazz piano at the Hilversum Conservatory. Yet he is  regarded as one of the greatest Dutch jazz pianists, who  unfortunately showed little interest in recording. The few records  he made are very high rated in the jazz world.   During the 2003 North Sea Jazz Festival Rob Madna  posthumously received the prestigious Bird Award for his  Complete Works. This site is dedicated to jazz pianist, composer and arranger Rob Madna www.robmadna.info  About this website This www.robmadna.info page is a non-profit website. Purpose of this website is to  provide general information  on pianist, composer and  arranger Rob Madna.  This page is not affiliated with  Rob Madna's family, nor with  any management, record  company or foundation.  Wim, your webmaster Last update   Dec.11, 2012   new website layout, website is still under construction. Use of Explorer IE 7           Please notice: the Biography  and Impression page tend to  load slow in IE7.   In Explorer IE8, Mozilla,  Opera and Chorme all pages  do load normal.  webdesign by Wimmo