My musical journey started when I was three years old, and saw a woman playing cello in the streets of Bath, England. I enthusiastically told my mother that I wanted to do that too, and started having lessons soon after my fourth birthday. Throughout my childhood, music was something precious to me, something that was my very own and central to my identity.
After moving to the Netherlands and graduating from the Conservatory many years later, I began the adventure of discovering what music means for me, and finding my own voice. My music is serious, but with a wink. It is a means of communication, and the most direct way of expressing myself. I enjoy making something beautiful that challenges both the musicians and the audience.
I approach the creative process in a very visual way and and translate (real and imagined) colours into harmonies and textures. This allows me to turn the world around me into music, preferably tailor-made for the musicians who will be performing it. I get inspiration from what my senses perceive and try to capture the essence of it, almost like in Japanese Zen art.
As a passionate feminist, I enjoy giving my works a positive message of emancipation and equality. And because “gender” is broader than the old definitions we are culturally in the process of reinventing, I like reflecting this process in (sometimes theatrical) pieces that are playfully confronting.
As a cellist, I am especially interested in contemporary music, though I also have a strong love for Baroque. I enjoy combining styles and times create contrasts, or simply inviting others to join me in my appreciation for the pieces I play. For me, performing is about communicating something from one human being to another.
Music, to me, is sometimes playful, sometimes intense, and always magical. It a way of relating to the world, myself, and other people and connecting all of these with the help of vibrations in the air.
photo in banner by Naomi Souwen