Ferry Corsten

Ferry Corsten, also known under the alias System F, (born 4 December 1973) is a Dutch producer of trance music, in addition to being a DJ and remixer. He also hosts his own weekly radio show, Corsten's Countdown. He routinely plays at events all over the world with crowds in excess of tens of thousands. In 2009 Ferry Corsten ranked #7 on DJ Magazine's annual Top 100 DJ Poll, dropping to #9 and #18 in subsequent years. Ferry Corsten was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He has produced and remixed under many aliases since the release of his first record at the age of sixteen, but he officially started to work as a musician when he was 17 years old. As a teenager he saved money to buy his first keyboard by washing cars, and selling mix tapes to kids in his neighbourhood. He later began to perform live performances with a friend and won his first award "De Grote Prijs van Nederland" at Holland in 1989. He eventually released a record with a couple of friends when he was just sixteen years old and later began releasing self-made productions while he grew up in Rotterdam in the 1990s, producing underground hardcore gabber tracks, later expanding into club-house and trance music. His first single to reach a chart position was "Don't Be Afraid" under the alias Moonman, which was only the start for becoming a composer as well. In 1997 Corsten and his partner Robert Smit established a dance label named Tsunami with the Dutch based dance company Purple Eye Entertainment b.v., this junction made the creation of another label possible; Polar State. Ferry Corsten was studying to become an Electrical Engineer, so he went to the Technical Training School and after that Higher Technical Education. In February 1999 Corsten's second solo project, System F, was released on the Tsunami imprint along with the album Out of the Blue, including the same-named melodic tune that became a hit on dance floors all over the world, achieving a top twenty position in the United Kingdom single chart. The follow-up single was "Cry", produced together with Robert Smit which reached the UK Top 20. His growing popularity in the late 1990s led to cooperation with many famous trance DJs and musicians like DJ Tiësto (Gouryella, Vimana), Vincent de Moor (Veracocha), and Robert Smit (Starparty). The track "Gouryella" by the act Gouryella was released in May, the single entered the UK Singles Top 75 at number fifteen and achieved various hit positions throughout the world. The next single was entitled "Walhalla" which entered the UK single chart at number twenty-seven. In 1999 Ferry was elected as producer of the year at the Ericsson Muzik Award in London. In September 2000 the third Gouryella single entitled "Tenshi" was released. In 2000, Corsten also remixed William Orbit's "Adagio for Strings" as well as "New Year's Day" for U2. His remix of Barber's "Adagio For Strings" was awarded at the Dancestar 2000 awards. The Ministry of Sound dance compilation series entitled Trance Nation became one of the best selling dance compilations in the UK and was awarded the platinum status. In 2000 in his home country Corsten got awarded the Silver Harp award for his numerous outstanding contributions made to Dutch dance music. In 2001 Ferry Performed and Produced the Dance Valley Anthem, the largest selling theme of Dance Valley and the largest event of The Netherlands (80.000 visitors) In 2002 Ferry contributed to remix projects of tracks by Japanese superstar Ayumi Hamasaki. He went on to compose and arrange her heavily trance-based song "Connected," which was released in 2003, along with remixes, as a single in Germany which has sold 4 million copies, making this one of Ferry's most successful songs. Ferry Corsten is the electronic dance music artist with the highest amount of dance singles in the UK charts. He has 10 gold singles, between those his 1999 remix of "Madagascar", "Out of the Blue" as his alias System F, both "Gouryella" and "Walhalla" in 2000, "Cry" and the "Dance Valley Theme" in 2001 with "Exhale" which is his latest as System F with Armin van Buuren; and his 2003-2004 singles "Punk" and "Rock Your Body Rock". In 2003 he launched his first album as Ferry Corsten, Right of Way, in Heineken Musical Hall with 4,500 clubbers at his eight-hour set. The music video of the song was nominated in the TMF Dutch MTV Awards in Netherlands. The album spawned three singles, "Punk" (UK #29), "Rock Your Body, Rock" (UK #11), and "It's Time" (UK #51). "Rock your body Rock" was voted biggest hit by BG Magazine in The Netherlands and reaches the top 10 in the UK. In 2004, he produced and performed the single "Everything Goes" for the TMF Dutch Awards.