In the late 1490s he began to receive commissions for work in the Low Countries, for example at 's-Hertogenbosch and Antwerp, where his impressive skill at musical copying and illuminating were immediately valued. This was the period when the explosion of musical creativity in the Low Countries was at its highest; that region was producing more composers than all of the rest of Europe combined, and these composers were emigrating into other areas, especially into royal and aristocratic courts who had the means to employ them.