NOëËLLE

Since January 2004 I have been a band member of EXCEPT-2.
Below is a brief survey of my musical career:

When I was 9, I started on the violin, initially playing only classical music.
Classical music is hardly "cool" when you are about 16, but I am glad I persevered.

At age 17, after playing in an orchestra for some time, I joined a folk music group in Bergen op Zoom, Holland.
With that group I took my first steps on the road to performing in public, mainly playing village fairs at first.

During my college years, I played in a band called Rûchskerne for a number of years.
This five-piece band performed songs by the Dubliners and Friesian folk music but was also quite partial to Scottish bag pipe music.
During the Folk boom we played many a gig, even making a TV appearance!

Simultaneously, I also played in a chamber orchestra, Salonorkest Sinnema which has existed since 1918, and which plays mainly operetta music (Strauss).

In 1985 I ventured into jazz music for the first time by taking some workshops.
After I had moved back to Brabant, in the south of Holland, I joined a big band in Breda, Granny's Savoy Orchestra, playing big band music from the roaring twenties.
Those were the days when big bands still included violins !

Together with my partner I made some "jazzy background noise"; music at wedding parties and receptions.

In 1993 I was in Sweden and played in a classical orchestra for some months.
Back in The Hague/Delft I picked up jazz music again, joining the Workshop in a The Hague bar called "De Pater".

On the Dutch "musicians bank" I accidentally came across EXCEPT-2's advertisement for a fiddle player and decided to respond in spite of my unfamiliarity with Bluegrass.
I just jumped straight into this music, which was not yet part of my "collection" of music styles, although there are quite a few links with Folk music.

By the way, I occasionally do some harmony vocals, which presents quite a new but exciting challenge for me !

And if you hear some "jazzier" sounds coming from my violin, then you now know why……

And, due to EXCEPT-2 i now even play the"coconuts";
(see picture !)

I have been with EXCEPT-2 for two years now and I feel very much at home in the band EXCEPT-2.
We have a good time together, which is quite important, and we work hard to take our repertoire to a high quality level.