The ultimate language of music
“Playing in a string quartet is, for me, speaking in the ultimate language of music — and in that moment understanding one another completely.”
An interview with Olivia Scheepers, first violinist from the Belinfante Quartet
A sunny, crisp November day, trees glowing in autumn colours, a city centre bustling with shoppers, and a café tucked into the side of a concert hall: this is where we meet violinist Olivia Scheepers, founder of the Belinfante Quartet. After nearly ten years of carving out their musical path, this quartet — with members from all corners of Europe — has become an indispensable part of Dutch musical life. Their hallmark: concerts built around a theme that touches the listener’s soul. Alongside works by composers from the traditional quartet canon, they always cherish attention for “forgotten” composers — often women, and sometimes from unexpected corners of the world where one would not immediately expect the inventor of a string quartet, such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Olivia appears energetic and relaxed — nothing like a musician who will resume rehearsals tomorrow for a concert tour with their new programme. This programme, titled Music and the Spheres, begins in Almere, where the quartet is this year’s Artist in Residence at the concert hall De Goede Rede. Olivia’s musical personality has, as described by the other members on the quartet’s website, “a playful and mischievous side — with the ability to shift between humour and drama.” These qualities also shine through in her own personality as she talks about her life as a musician and string quartet player.
From girls’ choir ‘Giocoso’ in Weert to the Royal College of Music in London
“I don’t come from a musical family. But my parents did think it was very important that my sister and I took music lessons. They saw that I simply enjoyed music and singing — I was always singing from a young age. So I joined ‘Giocoso’, a three-part women’s choir in Weert. It was a choir for girls only, and we had a very inspired conductor. We sang at a fairly high amateur level and took part in choir festivals. I sang there until I left for London to continue my studies (Olivia studied at the Royal College of Music from 2009–2014, ed.). We sang a wide repertoire of what was then called ‘world music’: songs from, for example, Japan and Hungary. Looking back now, I think this broad view of the world’s musical traditions may well have sown the seeds for my later interest in global music and for our Belinfante Quartet project Parallel 40, in which we search worldwide for new string-quartet compositions inspired by traditional music.”
Days from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the preparatory course
“Alongside the choir, I discovered the violin. I was five and a half when I started at the music school. As a teenager I went through a difficult phase. School and social life demanded a lot from me. But then, from the age of 16 to 18, I joined the preparatory course at the conservatoire with Chris Duindam. I travelled to Tilburg twice a week and went to school in Eindhoven. Every morning I left home at 7 a.m., and if I had to go to Tilburg after school, I often returned home around 8 or 9 p.m. So it was hard work. Looking back, I think: ‘How did I manage that?’ But as a 16-year-old, you just do it.
I learned so much from Chris Duindam. He taught me things that stayed with me for the long term as a musician. Since September, I have been teaching at the same preparatory course myself, still in the same building in Tilburg. And sometimes I still hear his advice from 20 years ago.”
Haitink, Dvořák and ‘concerto competitions’ in England
“In 2009 I was allowed to audition for one of the best conservatoires in the world, the Royal College of Music in London. Because I entered in the second round, I had only two weeks before the start of the new academic year. I was accepted and raced back to the Netherlands, where I arranged everything in those two weeks. Fortunately, the school provides rooms for students, and one had just become available. It really felt ‘meant to be’. I started in 2009 and lived and studied in London for five years. London is fantastic! I remember thinking: ‘I’d really love to hear Dvořák’s 9th Symphony.’ And then it would turn out that it was being played that very evening in the Royal Festival Hall. The school offered us so many opportunities. For an orchestra project, Haitink or Jurowski would come to conduct. Those are experiences that stay with you for the rest of your life.
After I graduated, I played a lot of solo repertoire for a few years. In England you have many ‘concerto competitions’: you compete, and if you win, you get to perform the piece with an orchestra. I enjoyed that tremendously! These are usually amateur or semi-professional orchestras, often connected to a church. But the level of playing and sight-reading is very high in England, even among amateurs.”
Speaking in the ultimate language of music and understanding one another completely
“I also had a string quartet in England, and we played the ‘usual suspects’ from the quartet canon: Haydn, Smetana, and so on. I was always drawn to chamber music more than orchestral music, and the string quartet truly is my language. It simply suits my musical personality better — I function more naturally in a quartet than in larger groups. It’s like in a choir: a string quartet has a homogeneous sound, and you speak to one another in the ultimate language of music. And when a quartet works well, you understand each other completely.
In 2016 I was concertmaster of the orchestra for a conducting masterclass at the Utrecht Conservatory. For the orchestra, that is often exhausting, because you play the same passages over and over again. So the energy tends to drop over the course of the day. But there was one cellist who kept looking—really looking—at, for example, the second violins whenever they played something together. And I thought: ‘He must be a really good chamber musician.’ At the end of the day I went up to him, introduced myself, and said: ‘I’m looking for a cellist for my quartet — would you be interested?’ He said yes, and I said: ‘Great, then there are now two of us.’ That was the beginning of the Belinfante Quartet. We found the violist through the viola teacher at the Conservatory, and the second violinist was part of a piano trio with Pau, our cellist. And then we were a quartet.”
A ‘bad-ass’ woman and a cellist
“When we started as a new string quartet, we knew we didn’t want to play only the well-known works. But what would we add — from our own personalities? We always programmed at least one work by a female composer. Over time, these became more and more ‘forgotten composers’. They could be women, but also composers of colour or composers from far-off places.
Finding our quartet’s name was an entire process, because there was a lot we didn’t want. But then what? At the time, I was reading Frieda Belinfante’s biography A Splendid Forgotten Life, and I suggested naming the quartet after her. I think she is truly a ‘bad-ass’ woman, who under extreme circumstances (the Second World War, ed.) still made music and stood firmly for who she was. And that’s how our name came about. We could not have known how meaningful that name would become for us over the years. Apparently, as a quartet, you grow into your name.”
A top instrument propels you forward and helps you grow
“I play a violin on loan from the Netherlands Musical Instrument Foundation. The foundation is unique in the world and indispensable in the Dutch music scene. A high-quality instrument is simply unaffordable for many musicians. When you play such a top instrument, it propels you forward and helps you develop further in your playing. In England you do have private foundations where you can apply for funding for an instrument, but nowhere is it as well-organised as in the Netherlands. This violin is already the third instrument I’ve had on loan from the foundation. It’s wonderful that your instrument can truly grow with you — during your studies and beyond.
Two of our quartet members don’t live in the Netherlands, so they can’t have an instrument on loan from the foundation. But we once received bows on loan for the entire quartet. The cello bow we were allowed to borrow had actually belonged to our namesake, Frieda Belinfante. That was something truly special.”
Music is a universal language, and the emotions are the essence — wherever the music comes from
“Our concert at the String Quartet Biennale has — like all our concerts — a theme: ‘What does home mean?’ A very relevant question for a quartet whose four members all come from different countries and travel a lot for their work.
For me, the quartet is my musical home. I feel that whenever we are back together making music on stage or in the rehearsal room. As a listener, you will go on a journey in this concert: from the Irish folk-inspired music of Rhiannon Randle to the Venice where Benjamin Britten composed his final notes — ending in a question mark — and finally back to our own country, with a new string quartet by Mathilde Wantenaar. We played the first movement of this work at the festival two years ago; this time we’ll perform the complete piece.
In this concert we show that music is a universal language: wherever it comes from — even if the melody sounds different from Western melodies — the emotions are the essence. And those are universal. Frieda Belinfante expressed it beautifully: ‘Music contains everything in a sublimated form. All human feelings come to expression: love, joy, defeat and death. Everything can be expressed through music — the good, the bad, the frightening. It is of ourselves. We create it, we compose it, we perform it.’”
After the Belinfante Quartet’s concert, there will be an After Talk: How Instruments Clear the Way, in which Manon Veenendaal, director of the Netherlands Musical Instrument Foundation, will speak with Olivia Scheepers.