My musical journey began when I was three years old, after seeing a woman playing the cello in the streets of Bath, England. I immediately told my mother that I wanted to do the same, and began cello lessons soon after my fourth birthday. From an early age, music became something deeply personal: a way of experiencing and understanding the world around me.
Born in South Africa and based in Amsterdam, I work as both a composer and cellist. My experience as a performer is at the heart of my compositional practice: I am fascinated by the unique character of instruments, the individuality of musicians, and the possibilities that emerge through close collaboration.
My music often begins with listening — to the qualities of a sound, a gesture, a physical movement, or an image. I translate impressions, colours and inner reactions into musical structures, creating sound worlds shaped by texture, timbre and physicality. I enjoy writing music that is precise and detailed, while leaving space for imagination and discovery.
There is a balance in my work between seriousness and playfulness — between intensity and curiosity. I am interested in creating experiences that invite both performers and listeners into a shared musical world.
Questions around identity, embodiment and gender are recurring elements in my artistic practice. Rather than treating these as external themes, I explore them through the possibilities of sound, performance and theatricality: as ways of questioning, celebrating and reimagining how we experience ourselves and each other.
As a cellist, I am particularly drawn to contemporary music and to discovering lesser-known repertoire, while my love for the music of the past — especially the cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach — continues to influence my relationship with the instrument. I am interested in the space between different musical worlds, and in the expressive possibilities that emerge when they meet.
For me, music is a way of connecting: between body and sound, performer and audience, imagination and reality. It is sometimes playful, sometimes intense, and always a way of exploring what it means to be human.