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Armin van Buuren — news, coverage & facts — IJR

2000–2004: 76 and A State of Trance series

In 2000, Van Buuren started his own Armin van Buuren compilation series, a mix of progressive house and vocal trance styles of music. His first compilation album, A State of Trance (not to be confused with his weekly A State of Trance radio shows), sold 10,000 copies and contains van Buuren's remix of Moogwai, "Viola". Teaming up with Tiësto, two new projects were born: Major League – "Wonder Where You Are?" was released on Black Hole Recordings and Alibi – "Eternity" was released on Armind. "Eternity" received club and chart success and was signed to Paul van Dyk's imprint Vandit Records. Another major collaboration followed this. Together with Ferry Corsten, van Buuren recorded a riff titled "Exhale" for the System F album, Out of the Blue. Released as a single, this track reached Gold status. Under the pseudonym Gaia he released "4 Elements" on Captivating Sounds, a sub-label of Warner Brothers.

His second album, Basic Instinct featured a new track: Perpetuous Dreamer – "The Sound of Goodbye". This track entered the Dutch charts in June 2001 at number 26. Later in the year, the track hit No. 1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The third album, In Motion was released 6 August 2001. A fourth album, Transparence, followed in 2002. In 2003, he worked with such artists such as DJ Seth Alan Fannin throughout a global tour on Dance Revolution in Europe, selling out to crowds of 20,000 people in the Netherlands.

In March 2001, van Buuren started his own radio show on ID&T Radio (traditionally broadcast in Dutch and later English since ASOT 183). In this weekly two-hour show, entitled A State of Trance, he plays the latest popular trance music tracks, and publishes the artists and track titles on his website. When ID&T Radio changed genres in 2004, van Buuren moved A State of Trance to Fresh FM and later SLAM!FM, two Dutch radio stations. It is now a weekly feature on Radio 538, the Dutch radio station, DI.FM, an online radio station, and on XM Satellite Radio, channel 52 in the United States and Canada. A complete list of stations that broadcast A State of Trance can be found at the ASOT section of Armin's website.

In 2002, he had a residency at Glow in Washington D.C., and played across North America. He regularly appeared at Amnesia on the island of Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain. In October that year, van Buuren was voted number 5 in the DJ Mag.

In June 2003, van Buuren celebrated the 100th episode of A State of Trance at Bloomingdale, Bloemendaal aan Zee, Netherlands and released his debut studio album, 76, a 76-minute album divided into 13 tracks. In the same year he was voted No. 3 in the DJ Mag and held third place for the next two years (2004, 2005). Also in 2004, van Buuren remixed the 24 theme song into a trance hit.

2010–2012: Mirage and appointment to the Order of Orange-Nassau

On 3 March 2010, van Buuren was awarded with the Golden Harp for his musical work and contribution to Dutch music, by Buma/Stemra at the 2010 Buma Harpen Gala in Hilversum, Netherlands. To celebrate the 450th episode of A State of Trance, he performed with various artists at five shows across two continents. The locations were: The Guvernment, Toronto, Canada on 1 April 2010, Roseland Ballroom, New York City on 2 April and on 3 April again, Expo Arena, Bratislava, Slovakia on 9 April and Centennial Hall, Wrocław, Poland on 24 April.

On 23 June 2010, it was announced that van Buuren's fourth studio album, Mirage was due to be released on 10 September. The first single "Full Focus", was released through iTunes Store on 24 June. The song peaked at number 60 in the Netherlands. One of the confirmed tracks from the album is a collaboration with English singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor called "Not Giving Up on Love", which was released as a single from Bextor's fourth studio album, Make a Scene. Armin also wrote a song for English singer Seal, but due to the release of his greatest hits album, Hits, the collaboration never came together. On 12 September 2010, van Buuren launched "A State of Sundays", a new weekly 24-hour radio show aired on Sirius XM Radio. On 20 October 2010, van Buuren won the award for Most Popular International DJ presented by The Golden Gnomes. A week later he was announced, for the fourth year running, as the number one DJ in DJ Mag.

The 2010 edition of Armin Only: Mirage kicked off in November 2010, in Utrecht, Netherlands, and was followed by shows in Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Beirut, Poznań, Moscow and Bratislava.

In March and April 2011, celebrating the 500th episode of his radio show, van Buuren performed five live shows along with various artists; the first was in Johannesburg, South Africa at MTN Expo Centre, and the second in Miami's Ultra Music Festival. He then performed in Argentina at GEBA in Buenos Aires, followed by a large event at Brabanthallen in Den Bosch, Netherlands which included more than 30 DJs from countries all over the world and was attended by over 30,000 people. The final show was held in Sydney on 16 April at Acer Arena. In 2011, van Buuren was appointed Officer of the Order of Oranje-Nassau for services to Dutch dance and music economy. That year he also received the Key to (Freedom) of Leiden from the City Mayor, as well as being voted No. 2 in the 2011 DJ Mag.

To celebrate the 550th episode of A State of Trance, he performed with various artists on two different continents during fourth weeks. The show was called A State of Trance 550: Invasion. The first event was celebrated at Ministry of Sound in London on 1 March 2012. On 7 March, Moscow held the second event at Expocentre. Kyiv's show was performed at International Exhibition Centre on 10 March. On 17 March, as part of the Beyond Wonderland festival in Los Angeles and on 25 March at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami. On 31 March, the biggest and final edition of ASOT 550 took place in the Brabanthallen of Den Bosch, Netherlands. On 19 October 2012, van Buuren was announced for a fifth non-consecutive year as the world's number one DJ according to DJ Mag.

To celebrate the 600th episode of A State of Trance, van Buuren announced that he would perform with various artists all around the world in early 2013. The show was called A State of Trance 600: The Expedition. It was announced that the show would tour the world, including stops in Madrid, Mexico City, São Paulo, Minsk, Sofia, Beirut, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Miami, Guatemala City, New York City, and Den Bosch.

2015–2018: Embrace

On 8 May 2015, van Buuren released the first single from his sixth studio album, Embrace, which was released on 29 October 2015. The single is titled "Another You" featuring Mr Probz. Three weeks after releasing "Another You", van Buuren also debuted another remix from Game of Thrones official theme which is originally made by composer Ramin Djawadi.

On 16 October 2015 he released the next single from Embrace called "Strong Ones" featuring Cimo Fränkel. This was followed by the release of his collaboration with Cosmic Gate "Embargo" on 22 October 2015. To accompany the album's release, van Buuren announced the return of the Armin Only series of parties.

This edition of the tour was titled Armin Only: Embrace and took place throughout both 2015 and 2016. As the title of the tour suggests, it was based around the collection of music that he showcased on his new album.

On 2 February 2017, van Buuren officially opened a new A State of Trance radio show studio in Amsterdam as part of his celebrations for the 800th episode of the radio show. The studio is located in the Armada headquarters. With the new accommodations made possible by the studio, he introduced a new segment of the radio show called Service for Dreamers where he invites fans to send in their favorite trance tracks that have a special meaning to them. Every week one track gets chosen to be featured live on the show and introduced by the fans of the radio show live, either by a walk-in, phone call, Skype or other means of contact.

In 2017, van Buuren announced he will be releasing an online MasterClass sharing his expertise in electronic music production.

On 13 April 2017, Armin van Buuren performed at the Heineken stage in Shanghai, in the first Formula 1 Festival along with Angela Zhang.

Van Buuren performed a seven-hour-long set at the Romania Untold Festival on 6 August 2018, clocking from 2:00 a.m. to after 9:00 a.m. This outlasted his previous 2017 ASOT performance, which had gone on for five hours.