Don't talk. Act!

Renske Vrolijk says about herself: “As a composer I often feel like rowing a boat; going forward while looking backward, looking over my shoulder where to go.”

Renske Vrolijk has her roots in vocal music. She has a liking for long lines and polyphony. In her music she strives to connect to the past, keeping a solid footing in contemporary developments. She frequently integrates voice or music samples in music.

The use of music samples is the cause of a series of Low Fidelity or Lo-Fi compositions she is working on. The music samples are derived from audio recordings made between 1860 and the late 1940's. These recordings are made on smoked paper, wax-cylinder, wax-record or glass-record. Sound of Wax, commissioned by the NFPK+ for Orkest de Volharding and Music Box for carillonneur Frans Haagen fit into this category.

A second group of compositions she is working on are narrative, documentary pieces. In these compositions she uses sampled voices to tell stories. Squawk Box commissioned by the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst for the Amstel Quartet and Hard Love for Wiek Hijmans are examples of this type of compositions.

In her 2007 large-scale documentary in music Charlie Charlie about the dream of flying with the airship Hindenburg, both methods of working converge.

Her music generally is constructed with long 'vocal' lines. She combines these lines with pulse, giving cause to label her music as postminimal or postclassic. The use of low fidelity samples also made some people think of it as a sonic impression of the visual arts genre steampunk.

Renske Vrolijk studied with Joep Straesser at the Utrechts Conservatorium and with Daan Manneke and Geert van Keulen at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatorium.