Fiction, essays and spoken word exploring cultural memory, forgotten women and storytelling.
Responses from Teaching Practice
This page gathers letters and selected reflections from students across different stages of study. They reflect on processes of learning, artistic development and the role of teaching in their creative lives.
Over the years, teaching has been a space of exchange rather than direction—where language, sound and artistic practice are explored in dialogue, and where artistic thinking continues to evolve beyond the classroom.
These responses offer glimpses into that shared process: moments of transformation, recognition and discovery that extend beyond the moment of teaching itself.
Rather than functioning as testimonials, these are personal letters and reflections — written at different moments in time — carrying both emotional memory and traces of artistic development. Together, they form a relational archive of encounters, growth and creative transmission.
1. Letter on Artistic Formation — Embodied impact, how formation continues to unfold over time
Bachelor reflection (Conservatorium Amsterdam)
I think it's high time for this email, which has been way too long in coming anyway.
At the beginning of the lyric-lab classes, which were overwhelming, confrontational and emotional for many of us, you promised us that we would be grateful later and predicted that some of us would send you a thank-you email in 10 years. At the time, I thought, 10 years, that's an eternity.
Now I am 33 and so this month I have graduated 12 years. Absurd and unfathomable, I think.
The four years at the conservatory still feel longer than the 12 years after. Maybe it is because quarters still regularly fall into place and retroactive advice suddenly makes sense. Or maybe it's because the conservatory was the start of my life as a musician in Amsterdam, and therefore it feels like one long arc to now.
And all the memories of that life, detached from their context and moment in time, have now become one big story, connected to the four years with you. But probably it is mostly because they were the four most beautiful and important years of my life so far. And I secretly knew that even then.
It is bizarre but special to feel that you are experiencing something that you already know at the very moment is going to play such a big role in your life. Strangely melancholic, but mostly very powerful.
What I find even more absurd is how much impact 1 person can have on me and (the rest of) my life. The enormous amount of insights, tools, inspiration and vision you have given me is incredible and still growing every day.
So it is incomprehensible to me to hear that interest in your profession is waning, as I have learned more from you than from all other teachers combined. Everyone who makes something benefits from your profession, including producers.
Anyway, being able to let go of things in life with a fulfilled feeling seems very important to me. And that fulfilled feeling is more than justified.
In my opinion, you are what sets the Conservatory of Amsterdam apart from all other pop conservatories and studies. I learned a lot from all the different teachers; music theory, instrument mastery, attitude, phrasing, ensemble playing, you name it.
But you teach artistry, you let people discover and develop creativity, you teach people to look at the world around them as creators, and see that there is a song or other work of art in everything, if you just listen and look, and collect.
You see potential and talents in students that completely elude others, you recognize a quest before someone realizes it themselves, and give it direction.
You sense uncertainty and doubt and know that that is where the essence of learning lies, and you dare to poke and push at it until it bursts open and gets room to flourish. Even if it comes at the expense of what students think of you (at that moment). You spot bullshit, and filter it out. So vulnerable then, but so important during all those years after.
I hope you know that there are many people who feel exactly the same way. That there are even many students from other programs who know the stories and envy us. And I hope that you have already received many such emails and may receive many more.
Because it seems pretty tough to give yourself so fully for other people, even if in the moment it's not always appreciated.
At the same time, I hope that a day will come when I may and can give people what you have given me. Because if I can mean to people only half of what you have meant to me, I know that I have passed on something of that magic.
Finally, I hope that there is much beauty waiting for you in the future, when the school will soon have lost you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Much love
Language, Material, and Meaning — Conceptual transmition, how to learn to think as an artist
Master reflection (Conservatorium Amsterdam)
You left quickly after the graduation ceremony, so I didn't have a chance to speak to you in person.
I'd like to thank you, primarily for your role with the master's, but also (because I don't remember ever doing so in so many words) with the undergraduate. You have been a crucial influence in developing my thinking about what art is and what it means to be an artist. Ideas about the the relationship between creator and material (“the material also wants something”), inspiration (“when you walk down the Kalverstraat, you have a song at the end”), meaning of language beyond the literal (“language as a carrier of value”), workflow (sketching); these are principles that set in motion and have continued to develop in me. I know that your way of thinking doesn't land or be appreciated by everyone, but for someone who tries to commit to art with heart and soul as well as reason, you are a signpost whose equal I have not yet met.
I respect and admire what you do and feel privileged to have studied under you for six years.
3. Writing Through Crisis — Writing as a process of self-discovery, liberation and artistic emergence.
Online Lyric Writing course (pandemic period)
It was a scary time full of insecurities. We were in lockdown and all gigs were cancelled. Once we stabilised ourselves, we had to figure out a way to get through it all.
Me…? I decided to go back to studying and signed up for Blanka Pesja’s online Lyric Writing course at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. At first, the assignments felt weird and abstract, but Blanka challenged me to go beyond the surface and before I knew it, I opened up like Pandora’s box. I was sent on a healing & self-liberating journey by this lady, who kept stimulating & motivating me to dig deep. And boy did I!
To be able to transform my life-story incl. painful childhood, visual impairment and health-issues, into amazing lyrics, was the ultimate self-healing experience! I got to discover & develop myself as a writer and ended up graduating Cum Laude!
Now, I am releasing my 1st single in March and the rest of my singer-songwriter album in the 2nd half of 2024! I will forever be thankful to have worked with you, Blanka. Thank you for such an important contribution to my journey!
Notes of Appriciation
