“Blossom Everywhere and I Heard a Voice are two songs for voice, clarinet in Bb, saxophone, and vibraphone, based on texts by Lizz Berry and Lisanne Van Aert. These pieces were commissioned by and written for the VONK Ensemble.
Working with texts by living writers is a uniquely inspiring experience. I think the creative exchange between composer and writer enriches the artistic process. I was fortunate to set music to these two beautiful poems, each written by talented young female writers. Their texts are fresh, honest, and pure, with individual characteristics that I aimed to reflect in my compositions.
Although the songs can be performed individually, together they form an organic whole, guiding the listener along a continuous creative journey.”
“I find VONK special because they ask composers to write songs for them, granting artistic freedom. I could see VONK as a band where the reeds acts as a background choir, or as a harmonic instrument, and the bass clarinet plays the role of a bass guitar.
A song—what is a song to me? How do I want a song to be structured? A song has recurring elements, a verse, a chorus, and then a bridge. The idea of composing a recurring chorus felt liberating to me. It’s really fun to have something that repeats within a composition because it allows you to enjoy it several times. However, with each return, it must be built upon, deepened, and enriched.
I actually started working on the second song before finishing the first one. It was shortly after my trip to the U.S. I had just returned, and I was utterly exhausted from the journey and the time difference. During my recovery from mononucleosis, when I slept a lot during the day, I had discovered a way to enter a meditative state between wakefulness and sleep, where I could think about my compositions. The downside is that the ideas often felt elusive—you try to grasp an idea, and while it’s already present in your thoughts, you just can’t quite catch it.
I felt like the vibraphone sounded like that—the motor can be adjusted to vibrate at fast, medium, or slow speeds, much like trying to tune a radio to the right station.
The words “I can’t quite put my finger on it” kept going through in my mind, so I decided to hold onto that phrase. Just like when you’re trying to capture a certain feeling, but words fall short. I’m in a rather happy phase of my life, so it felt like “it’s something beautiful, but I just can’t grasp it: I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Fingers—two handfuls of them—each trying to pin down an idea individually. The reeds play bisbigliando, the vibraphone plays rapid grace notes, and the note it ends on bends downward again. It remains elusive for a long time!
For the form and structure of this song, I felt the need to create something like a ballad, as I know it from jazz standards. A ballad suited the emotions of happiness and contentment. I’ve played many jazz standards in the past, and what always intrigued me was how the theme is often played twice (followed by the solos). I thought this would be a lovely form for this work: in the first part, the idea is still ungraspable, but in the repetition, there’s an unmistakable “aha!” moment.”
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