Jenna Vergeynst

How do you practise listening?

Anytime when I am outside, I open up my ears. I find joy in listening to birds throughout the anthropogenic soundscape, detecting swifts high in the sky long before they are in sight, ear-spotting black redstarts on rooftops by their signature call, enjoying the eternal improvisations of a blackbird or a robin. But also, the wingbeat of a dragonfly, the buzzing of numerous species of flies, the stridulated songs of grasshoppers and crickets, the squeaking of mice, and all the hidden sounds of life that we cannot hear unaided. The act of giving attention to these non-human fellows is my own small first step to an ecocentric way of life and music making.

How would you describe the relationship to your instrument ?

Double. I like the embrace to which a harpist is destined, the physical touch of strings to my fingers, and the retained freedom of airflow through my lungs, hence the possiblity of adding an extra layer with my own voice. But the “history of my instrument” and its popular image is a burden.

If anything was possible, where would you like to have a concert someday?

I’m more interested in people than in spaces. I like to take the challenge of interesting a non-specialist audience for new music and sounds, offering the possibility to listen not only with the ears but also with the eyes, hoping to touch despite (or thanks to) the discomfort of unknown sounds. Maybe one day I want to take this challenge further to an audience of non-human people …