At the initiative of MATRIX [Centre for New Music], a bold book has just been published: 'Head Full of Sounds – Stories from the World of Music'. A book featuring portraits of people who dared to set an idea from their head to music. Bold in its approach through the variety of texts and drawing styles. Bold because it addresses both children and adults. Bold finally because half of the sixteen people portrayed are women. The mere fact that this deserves to be highlighted speaks volumes. But perhaps times are indeed changing. 'Did you have trouble finding enough men?' a young reader asked at the book launch.

This remarkable book is the fruit of a collaboration of (mainly) women. During the corona period – which, in retrospect, turned out to be so fruitful for many creative minds – Rebecca Diependaele, head of MATRIX, lamented to Annemarie Peeters on a terrace opposite that she dreamed of a (children's) book about music. After all, she had a vivid memory of the celebrated children's author Gerda Van Cleemput's books about Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, and Clara Schumann that had drawn her into the world of music as a child. Couldn't they do the same with a book about so-called 'new music'? Annemarie – who 'writes, listens, thinks, and makes music' – was immediately won over by the idea. Together they engaged Emilie Lauwers, a visual artist who had already made her mark with graphic design for festivals like Lunalia and Musica Divina and numerous other musical and cultural events.

Rich and Versatile

In the hands of these women, Head Full of Sounds became a multi-layered book in which different disciplines converge. What immediately stands out is that all sixteen chapters each have their own design. Logical, Emilie Lauwers thinks, because the 'characters' are different too. They were born in the 20th century but grew up in different countries and continents, cultures, and circumstances. 'The text material Annemarie gave me was so rich and varied that it would have felt wrong to choose just one drawing style. The form of the texts was very inspiring. Sometimes it involved newspaper articles, sometimes lighter stories that called for a comic strip, for example.'

Annemarie Peeters: 'Each story is so different because each person is so different. In their life story and in their music. Every composer evokes a completely unique world. After I, with the help of the people at Matrix, had done extensive research and listened to the music a lot, I also saw the way I wanted to tell their stories. With one person it happened through letters (Karel Goeyvaerts), with another through newspaper clippings (Louis Andriessen) or a story told in the second person (Meredith Monk).'

The story of Finn Kaija Saariaho, who was so fascinated by the northern lights and heard sounds in them, gave Emilie Lauwers a black background with twinkling illustrations.

Imagining

Sometimes research wasn't enough and Annemarie had to step into the composer's shoes herself, she told the audience at the book launch in Leuven. 'Sometimes I wanted to know everything that I could no longer find out. Why, for example, did Galina Ustvolskaya reject Dmitri Shostakovich's marriage proposal and later even speak disparagingly of her teacher? Unfortunately, their many letters have disappeared. So I took the liberty of imagining. Not everything in the stories actually happened. But I make that clear in the documentary pages that conclude each chapter.'

At the same time, such stories – whether imagined or not – make you want to go and search online and read more. Because, indeed, did Galina really throw Dmitri's letters into the Neva? The book at least gives the feeling that you get very close to the people portrayed, even if you didn't know them before. It's telling that they are described and addressed by their first names. 'We have the feeling that we've known them for so long. They've become friends,' said Emilie, who at the book launch had to be reminded by Annemarie of a composer's surname.

Test Readers

The book is intended 'for readers from 9 to 99 years old'. 'We could see that the stories work well for children from our test readers in primary school and the first year of secondary school,' says Rebecca. 'I've also already read some of the stories to my six-year-old son. But we hope that adults will enjoy reading them all too.'

The creators hope to take children and young people along on a journey into the world of (new) music. There's also much to learn, more than just about music. Incidentally, young readers learn about the Vietnam War (with Pauline Oliveiros), the squatter movement (with Louis Andriessen), silence, sound, and Buddhism (John Cage), Expo 58 (Edgar Varèse and Iannis Xenakis), Sabena (Karel Goeyvaerts), the BBC (Daphne Oram), the Holocaust (György Ligeti), Stalin (Galina Ustvolskaya), the apocalypse and ancient tortoises (Meredith Monk), the disease ALS (Johanna Magdalena Beyer), and much more. Difficult words are not avoided. But it's all easy to understand. Besides, does a child need to understand everything? Something always sticks with you. And it's about being intrigued and wanting to know more.

What is music?

The creators also wanted to open up the question of who or what a composer is. They certainly don't all have to be Mozart-like child prodigies. Composers can be war refugees, or shy girls who failed their conservatory entrance exam, people like you and me with doubts and uncertainties. Or people who, like Mark Applebaum, just grab whatever materials they can find and cobble together an 'instrument' that produces strange sounds. Or who wrote a 'score' for three conductors who are allowed to wave their arms vigorously while not a single note is heard. Because he finds (classical) music 'so boring'... But what is 'music' anyway?

'I hope our book is an encouragement for young people to dare,' says Annemarie. 'Because I developed enormous admiration for this while writing: even when they weren't sure whether the idea in their head made sense, or whether it would work, or whether they could actually do it, these composers just tried it anyway. That taught me a lot, and because of it I now dare to do things I didn't dare before. So if you have an idea in your head: just do it!'

Half women

For many adults too, for whom new music still sounds rather unfamiliar, quite a few names of the people portrayed are likely new. Rebecca: 'We also encountered figures we didn't initially know well. Besides, we didn't go for the usual suspects, like a Pierre Boulez or a Karlheinz Stockhausen, who have already put themselves on a pedestal. Although Stockhausen does get a mention as a friend of Karel Goeyvaerts. After an extensive brainstorm, partly based on the handbook by Mark Delaere, A Brief Music History of Here and Now, we came up with a longlist from which we ultimately selected sixteen names.'

Remarkably: from the very beginning, the creators were determined that half of the people portrayed should be women, which meant they wanted to do better than the 40/60 ratio in Delaere's book (itself also a MATRIX initiative).

'Every female artist reaches a point where she realizes that lessons and courses on art, music, or literary history are almost exclusively about men,' Annemarie explains to the children in the room. 'As a woman, you start to wonder what you're even doing there. Do you fit into that story? You might start thinking that women just aren't as good. Because that's what people thought in the past. That's why they didn't write about them and didn't program them. Fortunately, that's changing.'

History stays silent

Particularly illustrative in this regard is the final chapter, devoted to Johanna Magdalena Beyer. Johanna who? Well, a composer who was completely forgotten, simply because no one was interested in her. 'So no one bothered to write things about her,' the book concludes in a kind of explanation. 'And so anyone who wants to know something about her today has a huge problem: history stays silent!' That is, until some researchers—quite by accident—were triggered to investigate and discovered that this Johanna was a 'top person' and her music 'so incredibly exciting.'

'But of course we also find the music of men good and important,' Annemie added with a wink at the book launch. On that occasion, it was up to a reading jury of three young children to ask the questions. That the times might indeed be changing became apparent from Ilya's surprising question: 'Did you immediately have as many men as women for your book, or did you have trouble finding enough men?'...

In any case, there were many more women on the wish list, Annemarie responded, perhaps enough for another book. It reminded me of the observation by Annelies Van Parys when I {{NOTRANSLATE_1}} interviewedher: 'Perhaps two-thirds of the leading composers today are women.'

Colored stripes

You don't have to read the book cover to cover. You can leaf through it and browse. The order of the chapters is largely arbitrary anyway; a chronology would have made little sense. 'When all the texts and illustrations were ready, we laid all the pages on the floor and decided how we wanted to arrange them,' Rebecca explains.

That working process also left its mark on the book's cover. It features rows of colored stripes, which represent the number of pages each chapter contains and its color palette. Emilie: 'Capturing sixteen diverse individuals in a single image didn't seem straightforward. But at one point we came across a sketchbook by Iannis Xenakis, a kind of visual score. That gave me, as a visual artist entering the world of music, the idea to create my own version of it, with stripes and colors and pencil notes. So you could see the cover as the score of the book.'

Listening

Only regarding the placement of the chapter with much explanation about electronic music—which ended up in the middle—and the first and last chapters did the creators reach agreement fairly quickly, Rebecca adds. In the first, you step into the mind of American composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros, who coined the concept of deep listening. 'We too focus on listening,' Annemarie emphasizes finally. 'Listening is so important. It would be wonderful if we could pass that on to our readers.'

• Annemarie Peeters and Emilie Lauwers: Head Full of Sounds – Stories from the World of Music, Borgerhoff & Lamberigts, 224 p.
• You can listen extensively via the listening page on the website that accompanies the book.
• This review also appeared on the blog Notes from a Woman at the Piano.