Composing must always have been in my blood. I am reminded of a childhood memory: there was classical music playing on the radio, and I was alone in the sitting room. I conducted the music with a knitting needle, walked towards the imaginary violins and played air violin, using the needle as a bow, then moved on to the wind players and finally to an imaginary timpani. Afterwards, I drew musical notes on a small piece of paper. Sadly, that piece of paper was never preserved, yet for years afterwards I could still hear music in my head whenever I looked at it. It was never quite the same tune. In my mind, I created variations and played with orchestration. That is precisely how music functions within me: it is a game that continually unfolds somewhere in my thoughts — sometimes amusing, sometimes irritating, sometimes challenging, and at times even sleep-inducing.

It was my secondary-school music teacher, Frans Baljeu, who once heard me in the corridor, singing aloud while juggling little musical motifs. He asked whether I ever wrote down the music that played in my mind. Apart from the one occasion described above, I had never done so. It had never occurred to me that this is, in essence, what a composer does: writing down what one imagines. At first, I found it rather bewildering when Frans suggested that I might be able to compose. His simple answer was that one must simply begin. And so my studies with him commenced. He taught me solfège, musical dictation, and counterpoint; he had me practise modulations and musical analysis, and set me to study scores and études. These lessons continued while I studied clarinet and later oboe with Victor Kruis. At a later age, I also began studying the violin with Paul Fischer because I wished to understand how one makes music with a bow. During the Coronavirus pandemic, I exchanged the modern oboe for part-time studies in Baroque oboe with Nele Vertommen at the Hoofdstedelijke Kunstacademie in Brussels.

After several years at secondary school, my teacher encouraged me to consider applying to a conservatoire. Yet I was full of doubt. Composers — were they not all men? For centuries, the world of music had been dominated by men; how could I, as a young girl, possibly add anything to it? That doubt lingered for a period. Frans countered this by introducing me to works by female composers, including Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Clara Schumann, Barbara Strozzi, Fanny Mendelssohn, Pauline Viardot, and Sofia Gubaidulina. In doing so, he helped me to find female role models. He explained how women who did compose were often all but prevented from writing professionally. He told me that women, like men, possess profound musical gifts, and that the history of music would have been far richer had women been given greater opportunities — and that there remains so much still to discover. Fortunately, there is nowadays increasing attention devoted to female composers.

In time, I myself became ill, and my teacher passed away rather suddenly. With that, my composing came to a halt. I stopped making music altogether, until I began singing with Concertkoor Breda and Bachkoor Brabant under the inspired direction of the conductor and musicologist Geert van den Dungen. During these years, I developed a strong preference for slower tempi. Particularly in choral works, this allows the text to come fully to the fore, creating space for the words to unfold as a narrative.

Another element that undoubtedly influences my work is my synaesthesia: I see colours and lines when I hear music. This phenomenon has occurred in other composers as well. It is known that Franz Liszt, Olivier Messiaen, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and the composer Amy Beach also perceived colours. Seeing colours inspires me; it often happens that new ideas emerge while particular colours remain present in my mind. My compositions arise from a sense of wonder — wonder at the richness of sound, at the silence that precedes it, and at the connection that is formed when music is shared. I hope my compositions offer a space in which listeners feel seen and heard — where emotion and tranquillity meet.

At present, I am working on On My Way to Oberon, an orchestral fantasy inspired by the world in which Oberon, the fairy king described by William Shakespeare, lives.