contents
1. abstract
2. tracklist, listening links
3. liner notes
4. biographies
5. other details
abstract
On 7 November 2025, the portrait album Rosehart (2025) by Rozalie Hirs is to be released. It consists of live recordings of her orchestral works. Listen to the full album on Spotify or Apple Music (links to follow later in October).
tracklist, listening links
1 roseherte (2007-08) 15’45”
Micha Hamel (conductor), Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
2 arbre généalogique (poetry, music; 2011) 17’31”
Susan Narucki (soprano), Pierre-André Valade (conductor), ASKO|Schönberg
3 avatar (2022) 8’17”
Duncan Ward (conductor), South Netherlands Philharmonic
4 bron (2023) 14’25”
Elena Schwarz (conductor), Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
liner notes
ROSEHART: orchestral works
Rosehart presents a selection of Rozalie Hirs’ early and recent orchestral works, offering an immersive introduction to her evolving compositional voice. Hirs’ creative process begins with listening — not only to the world around her but also to the ear’s own responses. Why does one chord shimmer while another remains inert? To explore such questions, she turns to the physics of sound: how frequencies align or clash, how overtones reinforce one another and resonate, and how harmonic relationships shape our sense of time.
Her harmonic materials are often derived from spectral analysis and modeling, then sculpted by ear into sonic forms. From these relationships emerge her harmonic language: overtones, frequency and ring modulation, spectral combinations. She develops them into intricate sound fields where timbre becomes harmony, ornament is inseparable from structure, and gestures unfold in continuous emergence and transformation. Hirs’ orchestral textures resonate and evolve, letting sound itself drive the narrative.
In the earlier works on this album (roseherte and arbre généalogique), microtonal frequency relationships entwine acoustic instruments with electronic sounds. Later purely acoustic works (avatar and bron) approximate those harmonies to semitones, encouraging performers to refine resonance and intonation in rehearsal and performance.
Hirs’ music inhabits a liminal space between the natural and the imagined. Inspired by myth, poetry, and visual imagery, her structures often echo natural processes — cycles, waves, the shifting play of light and shadow. Across all her works she explores how sound arises, resonates, and fades, creating a continual becoming and dissolving.
roseherte (2008)
Roseherte (“Rosedeer” or “Rosehart”) takes its Middle Dutch title from a mythical creature imagined by composer-poet Rozalie Hirs, said to dwell deep within the human heart. The name playfully intertwines myth, etymology, and identity: her first name evokes the rose, while the Middle Dutch herte (Middle English hert; English hart) means both heart and deer, resonating with her family name, Hirs (from the German Hirsch, “deer”). In this orchestral poem, the rosehart is awakened on a journey through rain and sunlight, beneath rainbows and drifting zeppelins, singing of clouds and time, accompanied by the hum of high-tension wires.
The score is woven from pairs of dominant seventh chords whose roots stand a perfect fifth apart, producing harmonies at once radiant and restless. Transposed, these pairs evoke overlapping harmonic series. Through ring modulation, each chord is refracted through the spectrum of its sibling, yielding prismatic sonorities that shimmer “in the light of each other.” Every frequency was calculated, then refined by hand and ear into orchestral notation. With these same frequencies, Hirs also synthesised 150 electronic sounds, realised in Csound. In performance, a musician triggers them live through stereo speakers on stage. The electronics create an “aural halo” around the 90-piece orchestra — sometimes blending seamlessly, at other times opening new acoustic perspectives.
Upon its premiere, Roseherte was acclaimed for its vivid, breathing sound world. Thea Derks (Radio 4) praised its “enchanting play of sound colour, transforming the orchestra into one breathing, pulsating entity, in which recurring motives received an ever-changing illumination.” Jochem Valkenburg (NRC) described “a refined play of sound colour, followed by a striking passage where sound vortexes expand around a more melodic core, like circles on water.” Frits van der Waa (Volkskrant) highlighted the “subtle electronic sound mixtures accentuating the orchestra in an appealing science-fiction manner.” Roseherte was nominated for the prestigious Toonzetters Prize as one of the ten finest new works of 2008.
arbre généalogique (2011)
Composed three years after roseherte, arbre généalogique (“family tree”) extends Rozalie Hirs’ exploration of harmony and timbre through the lens of poetry and the human voice. Drawing on her dual background as poet and singer, Hirs integrates voice into her compositional practice in a natural, organic way. The work, for lyrical soprano and large ensemble, sets her own poem ‘Stamboom’ (“Family tree”) from the collection Geluksbrenger (2008). The text traces ancestry along streams of memory and language. For this setting, Hirs turned to Henri Deluy’s French translation, whose playful compound words (such as mèremèrepèremère) inspired a vocal line of archaic, incantatory character.
In the eighties and nineties, Hirs explored her soprano voice extensively, shaping the vocal writing of her early works in both indie pop (“new wave”) and contemporary classical idioms. Later vocal compositions — In LA (2003), Pulsars (2007), and Bridge of Babel (2009) — centred on spoken text, tracing the shifting boundary between music and poetry. In article 5 [delphin, gekrümmte zeit] (2008) she applied spectral techniques to the vocal melody, leading directly to the sound world of arbre généalogique.
Here, melody again comes to the fore. The soprano and bass parts were intuitively shaped together and kept relatively simple; as their intervallic relationship shifts, new harmonies emerge through frequency modulation, propelling the music forward. The soprano unfolds slowly, with breath and spaciousness, while the ensemble transforms in colour and density, both during the vocal phrases and in brief instrumental explorations of the musical motifs. Long, arching spans create a meditative sound world, where the generational imagery of the text resonates with the music’s unfolding. The result is both intimate and architectural — a personal narrative refracted through harmony. As in Roseherte, electronic sounds form an integral layer. The same calculated frequencies that underpin the microtonal chords also generate the electronic sounds in Csound, subtly colouring and refracting the ensemble. Together with the soprano, they form a living fabric — a sonic family tree of voice, ensemble, and electronic sounds.
Arbre généalogique
mère femme fatale tirée hors de la boue père mauvaise herbe pousse
partout apporte l’esprit de mèremère papillonnant bon pour un perpétuel
mèrepère en jaguar bleue petits oeufs de pâques sucrées féeries mèrefrère
à quatre ans en pyjama avec le bac sure le IJ mèremèremère jeune morte
mèremèrepère baryton à femmes et à boire décadence mèremèrepèremère
comblait le creux dans une chaussette 100 florins épargnés rêve aux pieds
du lits mèrepèresoeur rejetée pour folle décrépite esclave du ménage
née le 19 octobre 1919 mèrepèresoeur prétendu mèremère pèremère
pensée liens entre tous les tractatus pèrepère qui pour des cigares
et un verre écrit les lettres du quartier pèremère célibataire sans moyens
pèremèrepère dans la chair et dans le sang rejeté hors du nom de la source
la fortune de son pèremèrepèrepère premier fabricant de peinture
des pays-bas à haarlem joué aux courses noyé son 19° anniversaire
pèrepèremère à eu 15 enfants don’t le plus jeune pèrepère l’arbre de vie
arrive là maintenant vie de musique des mots alors ?
(poem: Rozalie Hirs, French translation: Henri Deluy)
avatar (2022)
Composed as an ode to French composer Louise Farrenc, avatar is a tender single movement, imagined as if Farrenc’s spirit were passing by. Written in homage to a beloved and admired colleague — one of the few recognised female composers of her era, who endured profound hardship — the piece grows from a fragment of one of her symphonies. The Classical chord sequence, emblematic of her time, becomes the seed of a new harmonic world.
Here Hirs applies ring modulation — a technique borrowed from electronic music — to the source material, refracting the classical harmonies into unexpected territories. The modulations yield new pitch material and extended progressions that sound at once natural and otherworldly, acoustic yet electronic. Although the piece might have been cast in microtones, Hirs chose conventional semitone notation, allowing an intuitive response from the orchestra. She asks performers to focus on tuning for resonance, maintaining soft dynamics to reveal delicate shifts of colour and intonation. The orchestration remains translucent, encouraging blending and sensitivity. Harmonies shimmer, hover, and dissolve, and the boundary between past and present blurs.
bron (2023)
With bron (“source” or “spring”), Hirs returns — in her words — “to the source of my composing: the love for sound.” The piece unfolds as an unbroken chain of swelling and receding sonorities, a breath-like rhythm suggestive of tides and waves. Winds often lead, their timbres rising and expanding, while strings surge over them like breakers, then subside into stillness, only for the cycle to begin anew. Reviewer Joep Stapel (NRC) described the surface of this “acoustic surf” as iridescent, its colours shifting through finely woven textures. Within the overarching pulse of hypnotic repetition unfolds constant detail: dense harmonic clouds, bright punctuation from tubular bells, the deep resonance of timpani. Midway, descending string glissandi mark the close of the first half; the second half brings sharper contrasts and more tightly etched crescendos, ending in rising glissandi that resolve into a luminous final chord.
As in avatar, ring modulation underpins the harmonic design, and frequencies are approximated and notated in semitones. The emphasis centres on resonance within the acoustic orchestra. By using modulation to generate unexpected progressions, bron explores new terrain where spectral techniques and extended tonal harmony converge. It marks a significant moment in Hirs’ compositional journey. For Hirs, music begins — and ends — with perception. She asks: why is something beautiful? Why does one sound move us more than another? Such questions lead her back to the physics of sound: how tones combine, what frequencies they contain, how they reinforce one another. Her background in chemical engineering sharpens this investigative drive, yet her ear always remains the ultimate authority. Guided by simplicity — a principle shared with her mentors Louis Andriessen and Tristan Murail — her materials are “stripped to the bone, reduced to the essential,” with ornamentation serving a structural role. In bron, this aesthetic shapes a meditation on how sound continually comes into being, entering consciousness like the renewal of feeling and thought.
Here, the “source” is twofold: the source of sound itself — its arising, travel, and renewal in perception — and the inner source of inspiration, where ideas are born. In bron, this cycle is given sonic form: a source continually replenished, passed from composer to performer to listener in an unending exchange.
©2025 Rozalie Hirs
biographies
Susan Narucki
American soprano Susan Narucki is acclaimed for her luminous voice and deep commitment to contemporary music. She has premiered landmark works including Andriessen/Greenaway’s Writing to Vermeer, Vivier’s Rêves d’un Marco Polo, and Carter’s What Next? at the Dutch National Opera. Narucki has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Netherlands Opera, and has been heard frequently at Carnegie Hall. Her recordings include George Crumb’s Star-Child (Grammy Award, 2000) and The Edge of Silence: Vocal Music of Kurtág (Grammy nomination, 2020). A recipient of UC San Diego’s Chancellor’s Associates Faculty Excellence Award (2014), she is Distinguished Professor of Music at UCSD.
Elena Schwarz
Swiss-Australian conductor Elena Schwarz is acclaimed for her incisive artistry across classical and contemporary repertoire. She has led the Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and Melbourne Symphony, and conducted operas from Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová (Opéra de Lyon) to Saariaho’s Innocence (Dutch National Opera, 2023). A passionate advocate for new music, she has premiered works by Peter Eötvös and Georges Aperghis, and collaborates with ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, MusikFabrik, and Klangforum Wien, where she became Resident Conductor in 2024. Winner of the Princess Astrid Competition (2014), she previously served as Associate Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and as a Dudamel Fellow with the LA Philharmonic.
Micha Hamel
Dutch composer, conductor, poet, and novelist Micha Hamel is one of the most versatile figures in today’s cultural landscape. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and has written for the Dutch National Ballet, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Residentie Orchestra. His acclaimed stage works include Snow White (2008) and Caruso a Cuba (2019), and he was “Composer in Focus” at the 2012 Holland Festival. Hamel has conducted widely, directed the Netherlands Music Days (2008–09), and more recently turned to climate-themed projects such as Het Zwarte Raam (2021) and Earth Workers Requiem / Jubilate (2024). An award-winning poet, he has published five collections and received the Jan Campert Prize (2015).
Pierre-André Valade
French conductor Pierre-André Valade is renowned for his interpretations of 20th- and 21st-century music. He co-founded Ensemble Court-Circuit in Paris, later directed Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, and since 2014 has been Conductor-in-Residence with the Meitar Ensemble in Tel Aviv. A champion of spectral and avant-garde repertoire, he has worked closely with Grisey, Murail, Lachenmann, and Boulez, while bringing a modernist lens to the classics. His recording of Grisey’s Les Espaces Acoustiques won the Diapason d’Or and Grand Prix du Disque. Valade has guest-conducted the BBC Symphony, Tonhalle Zürich, and Orchestre de Paris, and appeared at the BBC Proms and Aldeburgh Festival. He was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001.
Duncan Ward
British conductor Duncan Ward, Chief Conductor of the South Netherlands Philharmonic (Philzuid) since 2021, is one of the most dynamic conductors of his generation. He has led the London Symphony, Vienna Radio Symphony, and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with debuts at the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Osaka Philharmonic, and Orchestre Symphonique du Québec. His opera credits include Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera (2022), Britten’s Peter Grimes (Oper Köln), and Death in Venice (Stuttgart Staatsoper). A versatile musician, he was the first Conducting Scholar of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Karajan Akademie (2012–14), and is also an accomplished composer, named BBC Young Composer of the Year in 2005.
Rozalie Hirs
Composer and poet Rozalie Hirs creates work at the crossroads of music, science, and language. Rooted in spectral thought—organizing harmony through the acoustic properties of sound—her music blends rigorous analysis with sensuous expression. Trained first in chemical engineering at Twente University (MSc, 1990), then in composition under Diderik Wagenaar and Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague (MMus, 1998), she furthered her studies in composition and spectral techniques with Tristan Murail at Columbia University in New York (DMA, 2007). Her works have been commissioned by ensembles and orchestras including Amsterdam Sinfonietta, ASKO|Schönberg, Ensemble Klang, Musikfabrik, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Klangforum Wien, and featured at festivals such as the Holland Festival, Présences (Radio France), and Donaueschingen. In addition to orchestral and ensemble works, she performs her music compositions based on own texts for spoken voice and electronic sounds. Hirs is the author of nine poetry collections in Dutch, six of which have been translated; her multilingual volume gestammelte werke (kookbooks, Berlin, 2017) is especially noted. She frequently collaborates with visual artists and designers on digital poetry, interactive apps, and museum installations.
details
recording, mastering
Final mastering by Micha de Kanter.
Recordings by NTR Radio 4 (1, 4), Guido Tichelman (2), Jacob Händel (3) at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam (1, 2), Muziekgebouw, Eindhoven (3), Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (4) on 8 November 2008 (1), 10 November 2011 (2), 5 November 2022 (3), and 16 December 2023 (4).
support
Made possible with support of the Iris or Hazel Foundation, Amsterdam.
special thanks
The composer expresses deep thanks to Micha Hamel (1), Willem Hering (2), Jos Roeden (3), Makira Mual (4), and Kees Vlaardingerbroek (4), and for having made these works possible.
design
Sleeve design by Saskia van Dam and Jan Erik Fokke.
commissions
The works on this album were commissioned by Nederlandse Muziekdagen (1), ASKO|Schönberg (2), South Netherlands Philharmonic (3), NTR Zaterdagmatinee (4), and Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra (1, 4), with financial support from the Netherlands Performing Arts Fund (1, 2) and Vrienden van de NTR Zaterdagmatinee (4).
music publisher
All scores by Rozalie Hirs are published by Deuss Music, The Hague, The Netherlands.
The album is released by the Foundation Iris or Hazel.
poetry publishers
The poem ‘Arbre généalogique’ by Rozalie Hirs was published in Action Poétique 198, Ivry-sur-Seine, France, 2009, in Poètes néerlandais de la modernité, Le temps des Cerises, Paris, France, 2011, and in Hirs’ multilingual poetry collection gestammelte werke, kookbooks Verlag, Berlin, 2017. Its French translation was created by the editor, poet, and translator Henri Deluy. The original Dutch poem, ‘Stamboom’, was first published in Hirs’ collection Geluksbrenger (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Querido | Singel Uitgeverijen, 2008).
rights
All rights reserved ©2007-2025 Rozalie Hirs, Deuss Music through BUMA and STEMRA. All rights of the producer and the owner of the works reproduced reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this recording strictly prohibited.
Registered with BUMA / STEMRA.