ABOUT
Mees Vervuurt (2000) is a composer and director based in Amsterdam. He graduated from BA ‘Music & Performance Art’ and ‘Composition’ at Utrecht Conservatory in 2022, and the Alternative Conservatoire in London in 2024.
Mees has composed for Peeping Tom (BE) and the National Theater (NL), and his works have been performed at Amsterdam Fringe Festival, O. Festival, Tête-à-Tête Festival, Frascati Theatre, Gaudeamus Festival. Currently Mees works in the music, performance and theatre field in the Netherlands and abroad with his collective ‘Studio Vacuüm’, in which he moves among genres, roles and disciplines. His most recent works VACUÜM (2023), STABAT MATER (2022) and Sometimes I visualize myself back in the belly of my mother (2021) are characteristic for their interdisciplinary, ambiguous character.
Mees creates poetical worlds in which you as an audience slowly disappear. Worlds in which all of the sound, the music, the painting-like images and movement are in service of the almost sacred experiences. Music and movement are flowing over into each other and show us how inseparably connected they are. The space breaths, the voice and body become part of the architecture. We sway along on the breath of the space, the borders of our skin slowly seem to dissolve in the resonating tones. First we try to understand the elusive, but then we surrender to the not-knowing. We let go and sail along this universe of sound.
These performances are always site-specific, in which Mees researches a combination of (live) music, movement and space. The location is always one of the starting points for the performances he creates. It questions immediately why we are there, it reflects us on our being. Every reverb, echo, corner and history is unique. We háve to relate to the rules and laws of the space, we can’t ignore it.
Mees is very much focused on the relationship between humans and the thing we call ’nature’. How we have become so detached from this earth, it’s movements, loudness and silence, while we are still always living on it (and with it) and are always a part of.
With his foundation ‘Studio Vacuüm’ Mees always starts the making process with critical thinking sessions into the themes, researching the presence of the voice and body and how that relates to the space. This philosophical and collaborative approach creates a strong substantive core from which new and surprising (musical) ideas arise. Mees believes this collaborative, critical thinking into the art, the artistic process and subjects makes the vision and work broader and stronger.
The coming 4 years Mees is artist in residence at the O. Festival (Rotterdam, NL), who will (co-) produce his works together with i.a Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (Amsterdam, NL), deSingel (Antwerp, BE), November Music (’s Hertogenbosch, NL) & Oerol (Terschelling, NL).
Mees studied Composition with Ned McGowan and Wiek Hijmans at Musician 3.0 - Utrecht Conservatory, and the Alternative Conservatoire in London with Busha el-Turk, Joel Bell & Catherine Kontz.
Click here for CV.
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