Pianist Maxime and I studied our respective instruments at the same school at the same time. However, we only found room for our collaboration in 2021. We quickly realised we came together with the same mindset. We both enjoy our solo endeavours, me in opera and oratorio, and Maxime in piano concertos and recitals. With our individuality and independance as our strength, we truly enjoy creating musical programmes that speak to us as artists. Our first programme, called ONTSPANNING (tension(less)) describes the contrast and dichotomy we find in art songs. We discuss the animosity between poet and composer, the chasm between text and musical language and the consequences from real life that seeps into the compositions. The premiere took place in February 2023 and resulted in a tour around the Netherlands.

To develop our collaboration and to implement the things we learned about our audience and our own experience we created a new program. We sought to seek the soft transition, rather than harsh lines, and our journey resulted in Aurore: shades of night and dawn. The title is derived from the song Aurore by Henriëtte Bosmans, which is of course featured in our programme.