Missa pro parentibus meis is the first composition I made that made me aware that I really had the ability to compose music.

Although my parents (and my family as a whole) aren’t musical inclined, they gave me the opportunity to get deeply involved with classical music. For this I will always be in their debt.

My basic training is a vocal one. I was a soprano in a Catholic Choir that was asked on a regular basis to sing in professional productions with e.g. the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Our daily basic music training was based on renaissance music by composers as Clemens non Papa, Sweelinck, Palestrina, etc. This has been the most important element in my early development. On the other hand, more contemporary composers like Stravinsky, Shostakovich and others also influenced me.

When I was having a rough time as a student of composition at the Utrecht Conservatory, because I was supposed to compose non-tonal avant-garde (yuk).

I became reactionary and composed Missa pro parentibus meis to thank my parents that they had given me the opportunity to have the basic musical education that I had. It was then that I really learned to appreciate my renaissance roots, being at a place with unhealthy rigid ideas about contemporary music.