Personal

 

Singer, Voice Therapist, Naturopath, Physician, Teacher, Psychotherapist, Choir Director

The Netherlands


I was born on the 20th of March 1956 in Roermond, the Netherlands, under the sunsign pisces, ascendent sagittarius, and moon in cancer. My family eventually moved to Eindhoven, where I attended a classic grammar school.

Music or Medicine ?

My first love was music, though I also felt a strong urge to help people and be a healer. My family encouraged me to study medicine, so I enrolled -in 1974- at the University of Nijmegen, a beautiful university town in the east of the Netherlands. This, however, was years before the advance of complementary medicine, and I soon became disenchanted by the mechanical and scientific way in which medicine was taught in those days (and still is!).

Thus, I also began to study Homeopathy and Astrology. Around that time, student protest movements were highly politicized in many major European cities (especially Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and London). While studying at the University of Nijmegen, I joined a group of medical students which pursued activism in community service, as well as in anti-nuclear and anti-pornography campaigns.

In my mind, it was important for me  to develop  connections between mental and physical health, and to explore the political and social causes of illness and health. During the same period, the womens movement was evolving as well. When I went on hiatus from my medical studies (at this point I was in Graduate School) in 1982, I co-founded a womens health centre with medical colleagues and social workers in Nijmegen. We worked with alternative healing in the new field of self awareness, seeking to develop more body-consciousness.

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Singing

 

My family has always been very musical: Ever since I was a child, I was always singing, and so was my family, even when we washed the dishes. I joined a number of choirs in Eindhoven and Nijmegen. In a choir you really learn to hear and form harmonics. You also develop a great feeling for harmony and the emotional range of  all forms of music. I studied classical singing for 3 years. However, the classic method proved insufficient for my personality and my voice, which is why I didn‘t pursue a study at the conservatory, as I had originally planned. Later on , after I had moved to Berlin, I also started singing in the style of vocal Jazz.

 

Berlin

 

Love brought me to Berlin in 1983. As I decided to stay, I started a three-year study of Naturopathy at an alternative school. It was an intense time, which I spent learning about several modes of alternative healing like Homeopathy, Chinese medicine and accupuncture, Iriscopy, Bachremedys, Colour Therapy, Foot Reflexology, Shiatsu, and all manner of additional somatic therapies.
With other naturopath-women I started the first women's praxis for naturopathie in Berlin.
At the same time I sang Jazz-ballads in an ensemble. The women's music centre Berlin asked me to give singing workshops.

At this point, I had also collected several healing songs. I was fascinated with the healing power of these songs, and the multitude of possibilities of shaping these chants through repetition and harmony.
I sang with my patients and I sang with my clients. Other centers in Germany started to invite me to come there and teach.


Thus, my work with singing and healing started to grow and develop. I was around 30 years old at thst time. Ever since then, I have experienced a neverending flow of creative energy, which hasn't seized to this day.
My study of naturopathy and medicine forms the backbone of my holistic work. I also learned Jazz singing (Reggie Moore, Rhiannon), Breath Therapy (Middendorf), Body Therapy, Psychotherapy, Shamanic healing work, Overtone Singing and Circledancing, as well as many other forms of therapy. 

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Physician

 

In 1991 I decided, after some hesitation, to continue with my degree in medicine, and bring it to a conclusion, which turned out to be a crucial decision in my career. I worked in an alternative clinic, the psychosomatic ward, and spend one year working in a psychiatric hospital. 

Although I enjoyed working with patients in a team of medical professionals, I didn‘t find a way to integrate alternative healing in this traditional system of medicine and psychoanalysis.

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MUSIC AS MEDICINE

 

My Work: Healing Voice® (patented since June 2005)

 

My worlds have finally come together.  Sound is a strong form of healing, especially through the medium of the voice.  This is why I have created four CD's with healing and power songs for people to use in meditation and chanting, as well as three other CD's with Jazz and world music. I will always be fascinated by the healing potential of sound, rhythm, and the raising of energies to a higher frequency through music, naturopathy, meditation, and acupuncture.

At present, I work mainly with singing. I teach chanting circles  and therapeutic voice seminars throughout Germany and Europe. Every day I feel happy to do this wonderful work, which I feel can bring happiness and health to the earth, to many people, and to myself. I feel happy, knowing my voice has touched the hearts of many people.

 

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Center for Song and Therapy / ISGT

 

I have taught in Berlin-Kreuzberg since 1994, and also offer one-on-one sessions in my practice. The contents of these courses and sessions range from medical and holistic advice and treatment to singing pedagogy, singing therapy, and healing sounds.

In March 2004 I led the first vocational training in "Holistic Voice- and Singing Therapy", which then fell under the auspices of the Center for Song and Therapy. This first training course concluded in late 2005. This vocational training is aimed at individuals who wish to work with voice and singing as a therapeutic medium. A second group started this vocational training in March 2006, finishing in June 2008. A third wave, now at the "Institute of Holistic Voice Work and Song Therapy" (ISGT) started in february of 2009, and finished in June 2011. A fourth group has started their vocational training in February 2012.

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CD's

 

I felt compelled to record a number of beautiful healing- and power songs, in order to make them accessible to as many people as possible. My first album - 'Womyn with Wings' -  was recorded in the south of Germany in 1995. Around the same time, I also founded my independant record label 'Rainbow Woman Production' to handle production, which is dedicated to the production of spiritual world music performed by women.

Since then, I have published three additional albums with healing- and power songs: 'Womyn in Circle' in 1998, 'Womyn on Earth' in 2001, and 'Womyn in Spirit' in 2009. To mark the occasion of the third albums' release, a grand release-concert was organized in the Church of the Holy Heart in Berlin-Kreuzberg in 2001. On this same occasion, I was awarded a first certificate of recognition from 'Il Canto del Mundo'. To celebrate the release of the fourth album in this series, we held a dignified and inspirational sing-along concert in the Ölberg Church in November 2009.

At the time of writing, over 40.000 CD's are in circulation.

These albums see frequent use during rituals, traditional celebration, to mark births and passings, to sing along to, and during circle dancing. Time and time again, we have received reports how these albums have spread joy and touched people's hearts.

November 2004 saw the release of the album 'Oj Malina', which features songs from around the globe, which were sung by the myself and the 'Chorabella' Choir, which I directed at the time.

Additionally, 2007 saw the release of my wonderful solo Jazz-album 'Home'. A necessary surgical procedure in the summer of 2007 created a severe and unexpected turn in my health. The previously mentioned album 'Womyn in Spirit' from 2009 was inspired by my return to normal life. After this, in 2011, I produced my most personal album yet - 'Leben' - , which features original and intimate compositions.

Every day I am grateful that I was able to give birth to this wonderful work, and to thus contribute to the well-being of both other people and myself!

 

 

Last Updated: December 2016

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