The Kyteman Orchestra is a project founded by Colin Benders aka Kyteman.

Kyteman was born with an unusual gift for music. At the age of twelve he attended the academy of music, but after a few years was advised to focus on his own style. So he quit the academy to tour with various bands. At the age of sixteen, he performed at festivals all around the world, from Szighet to Montreux to North Sea Jazz Capetown. At the same time, he composed and produced his own debut album, playing all the instruments himself.

The Hermit Sessions was released in 2009 and the music was described as a mix of hip-hop and jazz laced with tender melodies and raw beats. The album was a great success in the Netherlands; Is has reached the top five of the Dutch Album Charts, sold over 75000 copies, and has kept a position in the charts for more than two years.

In order to perform the songs on stage, Kyteman founded Kyteman’s Hip-hop Orchestra in 2009. These shows turned out to be an even bigger hit than his album had been. Kyteman’s Hip-hop Orchestra performed at all the major festivals in the Netherlands and won all of the major awards and prizes. After these accomplishments, Kyteman made a radical and unheard of decision: he decided to stop touring and concentrate on founding Kytopia, which is an industrial studio complex where he and other musicians can work, create, live and record in different configurations. He also performed with other famous musicians, among others Sting during his 2010 shows in Holland. Kyteman is always in search of new boundaries for his music, and travelled to Iceland in order to create without the pressure of fame and expectations. In 2011, Kyteman brought his orchestra back together, added new members and gave it a new name: The Kyteman Orchestra. The orchestra now consists of eighteen musicians, opera singers and a choir. They recorded a new album at Kytopia. “The Kyteman Orchestra” is set for release in March 2012 in the Netherlands.

Kyteman was determined that the cooperation between the orchestra and himself would be different than with the previous album. “On this album, I wanted to provide the orchestra with a completely new challenge and at the same time try to find the limits of the vocalists and myself. It has been a tough ride, but I can truly say that I am really proud of the result.”

In an interview, Kyteman said the following about the album: “This is a collection of sounds, somewhere between opera, hip-hop, drum & bass, electro, minimalism and all kinds of other genres that I can’t even begin to describe, for I don’t have the words for them. All the instrumentals for this record were done in one take, with practically no edits whatsoever. So we played everything exactly as you hear it on the album.”

In the upcoming months The Kyteman Orchestra will be performing at many festivals and stages, such as the North Sea Jazz Festival and Lowlands.

They are planning an international tour in 2013.