When you strike a tuning fork, its resonance continues for a very long time. This is also what happens with experiences. So my musing this morning is about the beautiful loft flat in Ghent at Claudine Bovyn's Beguinage tucked into the centre. The resonances continue: the creaky wooden floors, the slightly pooey smell from the drains below, the vast Norwegian sledge bed and the view of the famous three church towers from the loft window. To know that Van Eyk's iconic altarpiece was only as minute away filled me with delight.
Detail from Van Eyk's Altarpiece, Ghent
But even more during these months spent living in Ghent was the feeling that as an artist that anything in my imagination was possible. It was a time of multiple contracts singing for the Vlaamse opera. But I also composed my second symphony Memories, Dreams, Reflections in that enchanted loft . Days of waiting to be called to rehearsal facilitated this so that I interfaced composing with gentle walks down the main canal where Maeterlink would have wandered.
Memories
Dreams
Reflections
Now some considerable time later the resonance of the Ghent experience strikes as I sit in another version of that loft, The ARC in coastal Norfolk. It is A Room of My Own as Virginia Wolf would describe it. I have all day to compose and drink in the stunning view of the water meadow interlaced with walks by the sea.
The ARC, Artists Retreat Centre, February 2024
The Norfolk Coast
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