Annelies van der Vegt

I grew up in a family where music played a central part and life revolved around it. When I came home from school, my mother gave me tea and biscuits with Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater playing in the background, performed by James Bowman and Christopher Hogwood. My father was a cantor/organist, and from a very young age I played Bach’s cantatas and chorales with him. I rebelled against religion early on, but this music got under my skin and into my blood. Choosing an instrument was as self-evident as going to school; I chose violin because my brothers were already playing flute and cello.

The decision to become a musician was inevitable, but quite honestly I’d also have loved to be a vet. I’m happiest on stage when a collective concentration arises in the musicians and the audience, where it no longer matters which instrument you’re playing and everything becomes one. The counterpart in my life is the ultimate silence I find in the north of Norway, in a former school with just a wood stove, where I study and read and light a fire under the dancing northern lights, in the blue hour and in the always-light or always-dark.

Besides being a musician, I’ve also become a professional photographer, and I make portraits and reportages. Faces are like landscapes, and landscapes are like faces. I really love to travel alone with my rucksack, tent and camera, and then come home again to my children, friends, colleagues and my other piece of equipment… my violin.