Maarten Altena (1943) first studies double bass at the Amsterdam Conservatorium, and later (1980-'85) takes private composition classes with Robert Heppener. Having started as an improvisor, in 1980 he founds the Maarten Altena Ensemble, for which he composes numerous pieces. In addition to this he composed for various other ensembles, soloists and orchestras, and has written music theatre and music for dance. Maarten Altena performed with his Ensemble in Europe, The United States, Mexico, Japan and Russia, originally as bass player, but from1997 solely as artistic director. In 2005, after twenty-five years, Maarten Altena takes his leave as artistic director, to fully focus on composing.

His compositions since include Song Book (Words of Whitman) (2008) for the Metropole Orchestra and Claron Mc Fadden, Scattered Scenes (2008) for the Amstel Quartet, Scrape, Scratch & Shake (2006) and Table Piece (2007) for Slagwerkgroep Den Haag, and the musical fairy tale De tapijtenweefster [The Carpet Weaver] (2010) for the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Claron Mc Fadden and Mattijs van de Woerd, based on a text by Abdelkader Benali, Up and Up | Down and Out (2010) for the ASKO|Schoenberg, based on a text by Tijs Goldschmidt.

In November 2011 he finished working on Slam, Pluck & Blow, for Ensemble Klang. and will start working on an opera about the schadow for Slagwerk Den Haag, based on a text by Frank Vande Veire (2013/2014), and on a piano solo for Reinier van Houdt.