"Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough."
— Emily Dickinson
A blank page, a fresh start. With every project, Anne Vanschothorst returns to the beginner's mind: unknowing, curious, open to experiment and discovery. This is her inner landscape, where sound, image, and poetry serve as source material. Their boundaries feel arbitrary; a deeper logic compels Anne to dissolve them, allowing the auditory to become tactile and spatial, the textual embodied, and the visual audible.
Anne is an artist
with a harp.
She lives in language —
in wonder and
wandering.
Composing is an intuitive act that is grounded in silence. Nature provides the outer landscape for attentive listening and alignment. She strays from the path as she’s creating it, trusting her imagination and associative mind, curious about what disruption or chaos might reveal. The harp is an intimate, playful yet insistent companion, urging her to find the work’s equilibrium. She perceives her instrument as if its strings were made of clay. What then takes shape is a sculpture moulded out of sound, unfolding as it extends through other media.
There is a rightness about the work’s suggestive textures and structures. Its value lies in what it stirs in those who encounter it. Slow your pace; walk between the notes. Breathe, reflect: how does it speak to you?
Anne declares:
"I am with the Poet, fundamentally touched and irrevocably transformed by the significance of what defies definition and what I myself cannot express in words. I am with Antjie Krog – she who sounds and breathes poetry… she, who moves me deeply."
Other sources of inspiration include fellow musicians, authors, poets, spoken word artists, sculptural thinkers, visual and interactive artists, photographers, animators, and filmmakers.
Her process yields recording albums, analogue and digital soundscapes, audiovisual works, and installations that live their own lives in the spaciousness of both the physical and streaming worlds. Museums such as Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam have commissioned compositions and audio recordings, and her video art has been presented and awarded at international poetry and film festivals. Installations include Still Life by poet Antjie Krog and visual artist Bronwyn Lace, for which Anne provided the composition and audio recording. It was exhibited and co-curated by William Kentridge and Phala Ookeditse Phala at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg.
Believing that a work continues its journey through those who receive it, Anne is grateful to see her compositions being carried forward by other musicians, notably pianist Jeroen van Vliet and harpist Josh Layne. Her recordings have been remixed by many, and these reinventions sometimes become new seeds for Anne’s own experiments.
Das Harfenklangbuch is Anne’s ongoing research project exploring the blurred lines between sound, contemplative thinking and imagination. It is where she lives. Here, language becomes a way of approaching the world rather than explaining it.
"I am rooted, but I flow." — Virginia Woolf
Text: Green Room Creatives
"Many of the miniatures remind me of Erik Satie – not that her music is in his style, but that both composers so thoroughly explore an artfully restricted sonic universe – in which chords and single melodic lines appear in alternation and at a pace slow enough to experience them almost as if they were sounding sculptures."
— American Record Guide
"The wonderful minimalist and subtle film music is striking."
— Volkskrant
"There is a stunning soundtrack quality to Anne Vanschothorst’s music, but that should be no surprise as she has been called upon to provide such to the visual arts."
— All About Jazz
"It is precisely this sensitivity, the eye and ear for the smallest vibrations, that has made it possible for this great team to create a new work of art that clarifies, transcends and is equally universal, based on this classic and ever-current poem by Emily Dickinson."
— Jury Dutch Poetryfilm Festival
NPF Award for I hav’nt told my garden yet
— CV (Highlights)
2026 Harp & Soul takes a new direction, shifting from a presentation platform toward an artistic Playground: Sonic Flux Mixer, Text Engine and Klangwort open the site to interaction, serendipity, play and participation, anticipating a further move into web art
2026 Compositions & sound recordings licensed to Ateles Films for audio visuals and television productions.
2026 Her Innerview (short film, dir. Erica Baltimore, 2014; NFF 2014) — Composition & audio recording. Screened at the 55th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)
2025 Served as a juror for the Dutch Poetry Film Festival Competition
2024 Composition, audio recording and production for I hav’nt told my garden yet, a pin screen animation by visual artist Diek Grobler. Screened at major international film festivals, it has received the prestigious NPF Award at the Dutch Poetry Film Festival
2023 Release of That I Did Always Love, an Emily Dickinson-inspired harp soundscape with poems narrated by Annie Einan, on PARMA Recordings
2022 Composition and audio recording for a poetic pamphlet by Marion Bloem, presented at the exhibition of Fiona Tan at EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2022 Composition, audio recording and production of Transparant van die tongvis / Transparency of the Sole, animated poetry by visual artist Diek Grobler, written and read in Afrikaans by poet Antjie Krog. Official selection Zebra Film Festival in 2022 at the Haus für Poesie, Berlin. Finalist PoetryFilmTage, 2023 Weimar, and touring the Dutch film theatres in 2024, initiated by the Dutch Poetry Film Festival
2022 Pater Noster, a harPoetry movie featuring Antjie Krog, selected, screened, and discussed in the virtual listening room during the International Alliance for Women in Music Conference
2021 Composition and audio recording for Still Life, an installation with a poem by Antjie Krog and a sculptural video by visual artist Bronwyn Lace. Exhibited and co-curated by William Kentridge and Phala Ookeditse Phala at The Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 Harp & Kae — independent, non-commercial fan art using selected, recognisable fragments of Kae Tempest’s voice and poetry within the ongoing harPoetry project: experiments with harp and found voices, reframing spoken poetry through the harp
2020 Release of klip lied snaar, an Afrikaans–Dutch book and CD collaboration with poet Antjie Krog; received international critical acclaim
2020 Utopia EP— composer/producer; piano recordings by Jeroen van Vliet, soundscapes by Maarten Vos; inspired by the work of philosopher Joke J. Hermsen / Hollandse Nieuwe!, NPO Klassiek
2019 Composition and audio recording for Une vie de Renarde, a nature documentary by Ana Santos for Ateles Films, broadcast among others on national French Television channel FRANCE 5.
2018 Composition and harp recording for art work by Kandinsky for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2017 Release of Beautiful World, music for multimedia; received international critical acclaim.
2016 Composer/sonic artist, 60x60 (Vox Novus; concept Robert Voisey): works released on CD/digital and featured internationally; performed 350+ times in 30+ countries, incl. Winter Garden Atrium (NYC), Stratford Circus (2012 London Olympics), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; building on 60x60 Dance (ft. Bell & Golfieri duo) & Video Art collaborations (2007–2016)
2015 Composition and audio recording for Living River, a nature documentary by Ruben Smit, screened in cinemas, broadcast on national television in the Netherlands and Denmark, and distributed internationally via Apple TV, Prime Video and RTL+
2014 Release of EK IS EIK (I Am Oak), on Big Round Records, received international critical acclaim
2013 Video recordings licensed to date for international broadcast on Brava / DJAZZ.tv (now Stingray Classica and Stingray DJAZZ)
2013 Audio recordings licensed to date for GoAnimate (now Vyond), selected tracks included in the platform music library
2012 Audio recording licensed to date for the game Tales of Maj’Eyal, soundtrack inclusion: “Passed Tense” (Steam / open-source roguelike RPG)
2012 Awarded in the Art Rocks competition for an original composition and harp recording; featured in a commissioned video clip and performed live on harp alongside Little Dancer Aged Fourteen at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2012 Audio recordings licensed to date via Parma Licensing (used by Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, TLC, PBS, Nickelodeon, Nick Petrie / Innocent Creep — Tropfest NY finalist, GUCCI)
2011 harPoetry — formally articulated: artistic philosophy developed via ongoing ARTfusion experiments. Credo: music is poetry; poetry is music. Through shifts in context, the harp reframes voice and text — a voice beyond words. This line of thinking has been recognised in academic research as “a unique type
of translation"
— Collaborations (A selection)
Museums: Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Museon, Museum Jan Cunen, EYE filmmuseum, Bonn Landes Museum, Royal Academy of Arts London, Saatchi Gallery
Festivals: TROPFEST New York, Zebra Poetry Film Festival Berlin, Odense International Film Festival, Nederlands Film Festival, Go Short, Crossing Border Festival
Studios: Studio Drift, Dutch Igloo, Studio Joost Grootens
Visual artists: Bronwyn Lace, Christian Thompson, Erica Baltimore, Ana Santos, Dan Carabas, Michele Turriani
Animators: Diek Grobler, Joost II Sickenga, Aimée de Jongh
Illustrators: Sylvia Weve, Harriet van Reek, Willem Samuel
Authors & Voices: Antjie Krog, Diana Ferrus, Marion Bloem, Anne Vegter, Jan Eijkelboom, Piet Gerbrandy (initiated by NPO Klassiek), Ingrid Jonker (with permission from her daughter Simone)
Voices: Annie Einan, Marike de Jager, Ilna Stander, Gabriella Kountourides
Musicians: Jeroen van Vliet, Maarten Vos, Sven Figee, Michael Moore, Saskia Laroo, Arthur Bont, Thijs de Melker, Rebecca Sier, Bob van Luijt, Jasper Somsen, Jan Willem Troost, Ernst Stolz, Roland Kuit, Robert Voisey, Anna Heller, Roxana Moișanu & Mladen Spasinovici
— Interviews & Discussions (A selection)
NPO Radio Klassiek: with Lex Bohlmeijer, on life, landscapes & poetry (Antjie Krog, Joke J. Hermsen)
BNN/VARA: with Jan van Poppel, on work in general, Emily Dickinson
Concertzender: with Evert-Jan Nagtegaal on poetry, new music
Luister Magazine: with Karen Duking on life, inspiration, cross-over productions
Omrop Fryslân: with Willem Waldpyk on the composition process, marketing/pr, new music
Den Haag Centraal: with Hans Willink on life, music, composition process, Graham Norton
John Buijsman’s talk show: a conversation on health, harp, poetry and being a finalist at the Art Rocks! contest
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen: Brief Artist Talk + Q&A: A Sonic Translation of Wassily Kandinsky’s Lyrisches
Nederlands Poëziefilm Festival: Jury Member together with Vicky Francken, Jules van Hulst and Raj Mohan
International Alliance for Women in Music Conference: Panellist, discussing presented works
♫♡
Living in language and held by her garden, Anne plays in her studio in The Hague (NL), where ideas take tender shape through harp and soul — moving between composition, text, audiovisual work, and artistic collaborations.
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Anne’s private harp studio brings together acoustics, light and refined materials, creating a sanctuary for silence, imagination and music.
Designed and realized by Q82 Acoustics.
