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’ works have been performed at stages and festivals like O. Festival, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Tête-à-Tête Festival, Philharmonie de Luxembourg, Frascati Theatre, November Music & Gaudeamus Festival. Currently Mees works in the music, performance and theatre field in the Netherlands and abroad, creating site-specific music performances with which he moves 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 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-sensitive, 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.
Together with philosopher/dramaturg Roel Meijvis and producer Belle Lammers, Mees forms ‘Studio Vacuüm’ With this ‘studio’ as a producer and research-space for his work, 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 years Mees will be closely working together with the O. Festival (Rotterdam, NL), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (Amsterdam, NL), Gaudeamus Festival (Utrecht, NL) November Music (’s Hertogenbosch, NL) & Oerol (Terschelling, NL).
Mees has composed for Lucilin Ensemble, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Peeping Tom (BE) and Het Nationale Theater (NL). He studied Composition with Ned McGowan and Wiek Hijmans at Musician 3.0 - Utrecht Conservatory, and the Alternative Conservatoire in London with Busha el-Turk & Catherine Kontz. Mees has followed private masterclasses by James Dillon and Milica Djordjevic.
Click here for CV.
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