Luca Warmer (BA'21) is a Dutch jazz singer and voice artist. Combining her interests in poetry, theatre and jazz, she decided to complete a Minor in Composition at Codarts while studying at the Royal Conservatoire. After winning the Mingus Prize for Best Composition 2021 at the Conservatorium Talent Award, playing with the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, she continued to write her own music and poems of which several found their way to her EP 'Huub', a tribute to her late father.
The Alumni Office spoke with Luca about her interest in writing and composing, the personal process of creation and recording 'Huub', her theatre tour 'Applestroop met Tranen', and her residency at Theater Mascini.
"There were only three people at my final concert, in a hall that usually fits 300 people. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, created an unfortunate situation, but I felt strongly to make the most of my final year at the Royal Conservatoire. This final concert was received well, it was a mixture of my compositions, modern jazz, non-western European music, sounds and poetry.
In the year of graduating, I really wanted to release an album with this material. I wanted it to be physical, since music is something intangible and energetic, I wanted to have something in my hands. I have always been writing poems and in my final year at the Royal Conservatoire I started writing, producing, and recording my own music. I gathered my musicians for my group, a music video team and released the EP and two clips. My idea was to graduate with this EP, live performance, and Music Video’s to show people who I am and what I make, something that could uplift me and my music career in my time after graduating.
I started writing my EP Huub when I had to say goodbye to my father because of sickness. I intuitively started writing music and poems on my own, never with the intention that I would turn them into a book of poems and theater concert. It was a way to mourn, a process of grief. Organically, I started writing music on the text of the poems. Eventually, playing them together with guitar player Paulinho Paes, shaping the music: we worked together on different ideas, chords, bass lines, rhythms and improvisations. At some point I felt the need to have an extra musician that fits the ideas and my way of performing. I asked Paul van Nispen on percussion, who has a big range of different instruments and we fit each other perfectly since I make lots of different colors and sounds with my voice. Together with great players on flute (Alba Gil Aceytuno), saxophone/bass clarinet (Dick Ronteltap) and strings (Angeles Chaparro Fuentes on viola and Candela Mier-Terán De La Flor on cello) we started recording the EP. Collaborating with them really elevates the works to a higher level and I love this kind of connection and collaboration with people. I needed people that would be open to join me on this journey of grief, people that were able to organically grow along with the different shapes the works were taking.
Similar to the process of grief, the works went through a similar transformation. Initially, it used to be a tool to understand what has happened to my father. To me. Time changes everything and by the time we went into the studio, I was able to take a healthy distance from the music. The works have gotten different perspectives too: from the moment of writing the poems, creating the music, collaborating with other musicians, going into the studio and eventually performing them live on stage. The live show that I am performing now also changes with time passing, along with the process of grief. David Bowie used to say: ‘’ (…) when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.’’ And that is how I want to be as an artist, I like to be on the top of my toes and see what the music asks for in the moment.
I have been writing poems and short stories since I was ten years old. Writing these comes and goes, and I will always be coming back to writing these. My interest for the voice art started when I saw Bobby McFerrin when I was 16 in Maastricht at a jazz festival. Andreas Schaerer, Greetje Bijma. These are people who approach music and voice differently than what I usually saw and heard. Other pitched and unpitched instruments were as well a source of interesting inspiration to approach sound. It felt so naturally to embrace this way of singing/making sound, such a strong connection to my body and soul. I think you could sing everything!
I’ve always felt strongly connected to other kinds of cultures because I am fascinated by how others experience the world. I remember being fascinated by the muezzin that I heard in Turkey when I was young and would start singing along, amazed by the microtones ‘’in between’’. Or the gospel churches in New Orleans, USA. When I quit my previous study it was time to start living in a city that is so multicultural, I knew I needed to live in Rotterdam. Eventually, I studied in The Hague, and I love what both cities have brought me. At the Royal Conservatoire I could really dive deep into traditional jazz music, and with Rotterdam I could stay connected to the non-European western music.
I used to sing in the English language, but through my poems and the theater show I started singing the past year more and more in Dutch. I discovered a new part of myself – I found my mother language a difficult language to sing in, it was so close to me and yet it felt so vulnerable. The past year I have kept developing myself, and kept searching for what makes me, me. I have a nine month residency in Theater Mascini, Amsterdam called Luca’s lab. A project in which I search for my own sound and expressiveness through conversations/interviews with established artists and through new musical collaborations. Every first Thursday of the month I research a theme and I work with new repertoire. Together with the audience I create a place where I make art tangible and provide insight into the creative process and what the road to an own artistic signature looks like. Till now I received some beautiful comments on the variety in shows, people call it like the program ZOMERGASTEN but then it contains more music and performance. I hope to gain more understanding out of the arts and on a higher lever I hope to gradually shape the way we treat the arts and different artistry.
The process of work that I wrote for this competition is actually so different from my work for the EP Huub. I started writing Never Lose Hope during my minor composition studies at Codarts. With this work I was quite sure how it was supposed to be performed. The work was arranged by Rob Horsting for the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw which was such an honorable and beautiful experience. I shared my ideas about the arrangement with him, including the idea to make the orchestra sing. By the time it was the moment of the rehearsal, I was super nervous – mind you, the best jazz musicians of the Netherlands are in this orchestra, so you can image I became more and more scared nearing bar 356, the bar in the score where it was instructed that they needed to put down their instrument and start singing. Eventually they all sang in unison together, which was such a uniting experience. I find singing together is such a comforting experience, and the jury said that it was a touching and surprising moment in the composition.
I really want to travel the world with music, perform at different places with orchestras and groups. Festivals like North Sea Jazz and Montreux Jazz are definitely on my list! And I would love to make another album. Something new. At the moment I am researching with a mixture of modern jazz compositions and spoken word. My deep interests lay in the connection with other people and their music. By seeing the other person I could get to know more about myself. My dreams will eventually evaluate by trying, experimenting and by not being afraid of the unknown."
For more information about Luca Warmer and her project, please visit the website