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Birgitte has had an interest in music and musical instruments since a very early age. When she was 5 years old she followed the two-year course AMV, short for Algemene Musicale Vorming (General Musical Class) of the local music school, where she learnt to read notes and to play chimes. After this course she was ready to pick an instrument. When visiting an information day at the music school she fell in love with the violin. Her parents, however, encouraged her to take up the recorder (the reason being that violin classes were taught in another town, while the recorder classes were given a few blocks away).
After studying soprano recorder for 5 years and alto recorder for 2 years, Birgitte decided she wanted to learn to play the piano (mistakenly thinking that she was now too old to pick up the violin). Her parents didn't like the idea very much, but ultimately settled for a diplomatic solution: a keyboard. She got a - for that time (we're talking '88 or '89 here) state-of-the-art keyboard: a Casio CT (CasioTone) 660. We recently discovered it's ideal for playing hits of the '80s of Kim Wilde and Cindy Lauper, much to Manon's amusement, but Birgitte prefers to plug in the MIDI cable and use it as a MIDI keyboard for soft synths such as Absynth. But if they'd ever need a retro sound she's willing to make an exception.
When Birgitte started her keyboard lessons, Birgitte had hoped to be taught to play the piano. She had fond memories of her aunt playing Beethoven's Für Elise for her: "I made her play it every time I visited my grandparents - which was often," Birgitte notes with amusement. "Later on I insisted she had to teach me how to play it so that I could play it myself and she taught me the melody - although the placement of my fingers were totally wrong I did manage to play it. You can't imagine how proud I was!" So Birgitte was eager to learn to play it properly, with two hands. To her disappointment, she was taught to play organ instead (!). After a year and a half she was fed up with the keyboard lessons and quit.
By this time Birgitte was in her early teens and composed her first songs with self-written lyrics (Birgitte can remember one particular song she wrote about her most hated teacher in high school). She also enjoyed playing along with contemporary hits such as Elton John's Sacrifice and UB40s Kingston Town. After a year she got bored with the instrument and the keyboard was stored in the attic. She occasionally played the recorder, but as she got busier with school and later work, she eventually quite playing the recorder altogether. She did continue writing poetry until she graduated from high school.
The next couple of years Birgitte was too occupied to do anything with her musical skills or to study an instrument. After her negative experiences with the keyboard lessons she also didn't feel the need to pursue it anymore. This all changed three years ago, when she met musician Walter Romberg through a good friend. He plays synthesizer and talked very passionate about music. This sparked Birgitte's interest in music anew, and shortly after this meeting she decided to pick up the recorder again (she had to buy a new one and now plays an ebony soprano recorder of Moeck's Rottenburgh series) and to recover her old keyboard from her parents' attic. She also decided to buy an electric guitar (a black and shining Silvertone Sovereign Special glam rock guitar, for those who are interested), after thinking about how neat it'd be if she could play guitar and bass for over a year. She is currently teaching herself to play it, as she doesn't have the time nor the money to take lessons. But she admits she needs lessons as she's still pretty bad. Not that it stops her from playing and even recording guitar melodies. We're not sure whether that's a good thing, but time will tell. She also still has the ambition to learn to play the violin one day, as well as piano.
Around this time Birgitte also began to write poetry again and when she showed it to her friends they commented her poetry resembled song lyrics. Encouraged by her friends and particularly by Manon, Birgitte started writing more and also began to compose songs to go with the lyrics. Several months later, she and Manon formed Aevericka, taking their music and songwriting efforts to a new level. Working with the laptop and music software often posed a challenge in the beginning and often recording was delayed by (at that time) inexplicable technical problems, such as a non-working soundcard or not getting the synthesizer sounds or vocals recorded.
Birgitte's musical influences are mostly artists that are signed with indie labels, as she isn't too fond of today's commercial music. "Today it seems all the big record labels care about is money. It doesn't matter anymore whether somebody can write songs: they'll hire someone for that. It even doesn't matter anymore whether a singer can sing: they can fix that in the studio and during live performances just lip-synch and compensate for your lack of singing talent by extensive dancing. Can you honestly call those people musicians if they can't sing or play an instrument or write songs? In my opinion the best artists are on the indie labels. And that means they'll probably never be heard by a wide audience, which is a shame. Musicians should be topping the charts, not a bunch of untalented people that look like Barbie and Ken dolls."
She feels her musical style has been shaped and defined by artists such as The Mamas and the Papas ("Their cross-gendered vocal harmonies are simply unrivaled"), The Moody Blues ("Great lyrics, great harmonies, great music"), Grace Slick ("The lyrics of her song White Rabbit are sheer genius - a timeless masterpiece!"), Pearl Jam, Dead Can Dance ("The way they created their own distinctive sound by blending different styles of world music is magical"), Faith and the Muse, The Crüxshadows, Anne Clark ("She combines poetry with music in a way that's breathtaking"), and W.A. Mozart.
Hold on! You said Mozart? "Yes, I love Mozart! The idea for For Aileen came to me when I was listening to his Symphony No. 40. It inspired me to attempt to write a symphony myself. You know, a three-part piece for an orchestra lasting 45 minutes, in which melodic themes flow into various variations, coming back together again at the end... If you can pull that off, and with the subtlety of Mozart, you really achieved something that could withstand time. That was my dream. I didn't manage to write the symphony in the way I originally envisioned it, but I did get quite far. Someday I might get it right!"
But Birgitte cites Kate Bush and Monica Richards as her main sources of inspiration. "They are my musical heroes and my muses. They have inspired and encouraged me. I owe it to Kate that I started to write poetry again and to Monica that I picked up the recorder again. For years I had felt that the recorder was a silly, unimportant and insignificant instrument that had no place in either classical music nor in modern music. Monica showed me you can use a recorder in modern music very effectively and beautifully. Kate and Monica taught me two important lessons: Firstly, you have to believe in yourself and if you want to make music, go out and give it a go. Secondly: recorders are cool."
In October 2006 a drawing and a poem by Birgitte will be officially published for the first time in the book The Trill And The Hurting, a compilation of poetry and art inspired by Kate Bush, published by The Morning Fog Press. You can order a copy of the book at this online book store (world-wide shipping available) for £ 6.99. The book is limited to 100 copies so be quick to order if you're interested in obtaining this collector's item!
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