Trees are given a voice in a magical world

In Memories of Trees, Ragazze Quartet gives trees a musical voice. Memories of Trees will fill the space in a magical world of music, light and projections.

The four members of the Ragazze Quartet play on string instruments made by different violin makers. Some of the instruments are centuries old, others were built in this century. But is there more to find out besides age, when we study the instrument’s sometimes rare woods?

The Ragazze delved into the origins of their string instruments and became fascinated by the treasure trove of memories stored in the annual rings of wood. Annual rings are like a historical document: they tell us more about the location of the tree, the climate, the influences of flora, man, etc. This information sometimes goes back hundreds or even thousands of years. A fascination for the role of trees as silent witnesses of history and guardians of our ecosystem was born.

This fascination takes shape in Memories of Trees, a full-length, visual concert for string quartet and electronics with the central question: how do trees remember man and his disruptive effect on the ecosystem?

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About Memories of Trees

At the request of Ragazze Quartet, Kate Moore composed a poetic piece where music interprets the memories of trees. Parts of this piece, titled Hy Brasil, are part of the performance Memories of Trees, together with music from Garth Knox and Kaija Saariaho, amongst others. Audiovisual artist Jurjen Alkema depicts these memories with his projections. This creates a wunderkammer of pulsating sap streams, communicating fungal threads and crown horror, with the wooden instruments as performers.

The outdoor version of the performance premiered in June at Oerol, while the indoor version will premiere on 27 September 2025 on Festival September Me and will then tour the Netherlands.

Concert dates

Thursday

20 Nov

20:00

Memories of Trees

Predikherenkerk, Leuven

Info Tickets

Tuesday

13 Jan

20:00

Memories of Trees

De Link, Tilburg

Info Tickets

Credits

Music

parts of commissioned composition by Kate Moore and work by Nathalie Flintrop, Garth Knox, Kaija Saariaho, Mees Vervuurt

Director

Mees Vervuurt

Decor and video projections

Jurjen Alkema

Costumes

Bart Hess

Sound design

Koen Keevel / Harry Zwerver

Production

Barbara Reijs

Together with

Kate Moore is an internationally acclaimed composer. Her works are performed by Asko|Schönberg, Amsterdam Cello Octet, Bang on a Can, Icebreker, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble Offspring, the Australian String Quartet, The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Groot Omroepkoor, among others. In 2017, Kate won the prestigious Matthijs Vermeulen Prize for her composition The Dam. In 2018, she was festival composer during November Music and in the 2018/19 season, together with the Herz Ensemble she founded, she was composer in residence at the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ in the series ‘Zielsverwanten’. In 2022, she won the Gieskes-Strijbis Podiumsprijs.

Kate received her PhD from the Sydney University Conservatorium of Music, her Master’s degree from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and her Bachelor’s degree in composition and electroacoustic composition from the Australian National University in Canberra, where she also received the University Medal. Kate is a past recipient of the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo Fellowships, the Tanglewood Composition Fellowship, and the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship.

Mees Vervuurt (2000) is a composer and director based in Amsterdam. He graduated with a BA in ‘Music & Performance Art’ and ‘Composition’ from Utrecht Conservatory in 2022, and from the Alternative Conservatoire in London in 2024.
Mees’ works have been performed at stages and festivals such as O. Festival, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Tête-à-Tête Festival, Philharmonie de Luxembourg, Frascati Theatre, November Music, and Gaudeamus Festival. Currently, Mees works in the music, performance, and theatre fields in the Netherlands and abroad, creating site-specific music performances that move among genres, roles, and disciplines. His most recent works, A Myth for Piano (2024), VACUÜM (2023), STABAT MATER (2022), and Sometimes I Visualize Myself Back in the Belly of My Mother (2021), are characteristic for their interdisciplinary, ambiguous nature.

Mees creates poetic worlds in which the audience slowly disappears. These worlds are where sound, music, painting-like images, and movement serve almost sacred experiences. Music and movement flow into each other, revealing how inseparably connected they are. The space breathes, and the voice and body become part of the architecture.

Jurjen Alkema is an audiovisual and lighting designer, specialized in video projection. His work is characterized by the use of video mapping and light to create a visual world in the theater or on location. He has worked as a designer and as an independent artist for a large number of different theater productions, festivals, concerts and museums. He has recently done projects with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, harpist Remy van Kesteren, light festival The Hague Highlights, Metropole Orchestra, ASKO Ensemble, comedian Tim Fransen and Oranjewoud Festival.

Until 2021, Jurjen Alkema was part of the collective Blauwe Uur, with which he was active for Amsterdam Light Festival, Van Gogh Museum, Light night Leeds, Luminale Frankfurt and a large number of theater, pop and dance festivals. The collaboration with Helena Basilova has previously led to programs for De Hermitage, Oranjewoud Festival and the program Crystalline, a visual concert based on spectral music.

Made possible by

Kester Freriks, Theaterkrant

‘Enchantingly beautiful rendition of the secret life of wood’

Hans Smit in Theaterkrant / Critic Table Oerol

"Memories of Trees played insanely beautiful with the landscape […], with the slow darkening and with the instruments made of wood they played on and with which they communicated with the ancestors, namely the trees there in the forest. Incredibly beautiful, fairy-like and wonderfully lit"

Photo: Nichon Glerum

Trees are given a voice in a magical world

20 Nov

Memories of Trees

13 Jan

Memories of Trees

Music

Director

Decor and video projections

Costumes

Sound design

Production

Kester Freriks, Theaterkrant

Hans Smit, Trouw

Hans Smit in Theaterkrant / Critic Table Oerol

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