2000 Breaking with concert hall traditions

Why are the trappings of a classical concert so rigid? When you are producing new music, surely it is strange that the musicians look and behave exactly like they did 150 years ago?

I wrote a big piece for a large orchestra that started during the tuning and the warm-up. The conductor came on unnoticed, started beating time almost imperceptibly, and slowly the music became more rhythmical. The music emerged without any clear starting signal having been given.

The audience was confused. I had managed to compose a brief, precious moment of astonishment.

Listen to the piece, “Gush”, here
Click here for the sheet music

1999: An attempt to grasp something fleeting

In the summer of 1999, I travelled all over Europe. I handed out about a thousand leaflets in six languages, inviting people to document something small from their lives during the last 99 days of the twentieth century. Something that to you is worth observing, but that would otherwise go unnoticed.

And so, between 24 September and 31 December 1999, a curious portrait of our time was created out of hundreds of disparate little things from the lives of around fifty different people from seven different countries.

There was a gallery in the shadow of the Rijksmuseum that was willing to show it. Exactly a year after the start of those 99 days, people were able to wander around and see these testimonies of a fleeting existence.

1998: Music is space

The composition class had a monthly performance in a small hall up in the loft of the conservatoire in Amsterdam. So obviously you ended up writing music that suited the space.

When I was given the opportunity to stage a concert in the Oude Kerk, I experienced how this space changed the music. I decided to change my piece and I placed my musicians spread out around the church. During the piece they slowly moved towards the audience. The spatial effect of sound is fascinating.

Since then, I have rarely allowed my music to be confined by a stage.

1993 The Hague

I was accepted onto the foundation course at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, so I moved out of home and rented a room in Scheveningen. It was amazing to finish high school with other young musicians and dancers.

I wrote my first pieces.
My dream was to combine different art forms.

But first I had to master my instrument.

1987 Wapserveen

There was never a quiet moment in the house where I grew up.
My father would be testing the flutes he made.
Students came to study the flute with my mother.
I chose the violin.
Baroque music, studies, scales.

I wanted to take part in a competition. It was not a successful experience.
I realised that the road to the classical stage was long and hard.
I got to work and studied hard.