Biography | Nynke Laverman

Singer and language artist Nynke Laverman has been creating adventurous, atmospheric music for more than 20 years now, in collaboration with composer/musician Sytze Pruiksma. In her poetic, meaningful lyrics, she combines her mother tongue, Frisian, with English. Her voice, described by The Independent as ‘a leaf-blown shimmer of a voice’, draws you into wondrous worlds, always leaving you a little soul-struck.

She finds inspiration in cultures that live in harmony with their environment, like the Kazakh nomads in Mongolia, with whom she spends time. Their world view, in which all things are connected, has made her question her own western outlook, and this questioning has become a common theme in her work.

Nynke already has six albums and corresponding theatre productions to her name. For her debut album, Sielesâlt (‘Soul Salt’), consisting of Frisian fado music, she receives a Gold Record and the literary Piter Jelles Prize. In 2007 she goes on tour with De Maisfrou (‘The Corn Woman’), created in Mexico, ending her tour at a sold-out Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Nynke’s stay in Mongolia forms the inspiration for Nomade (‘Nomad’), 2009, which is crowned with an Edison.

In 2013 international recognition follows with Alter, an album Nynke records in Madrid with producer Javier Limón. The Evening Standard gives this powerful summary: ‘The language, landscape and sound world seem perfectly connected.’ In the months that follow, she performs at international festivals, including North Sea Jazz, WOMAD (UK), Women in (E)motion (D) and La Mar de Músicas (ES).

Wachter (‘Guardian’), an ode to the art of waiting, premiers with resounding success at Holland’s Oerol Festival in 2016. The Dutch newspaper Het Parool writes: ‘A powerful poet-singer has arisen’. Two years later Nynke inaugurates Leeuwarden Cultural Capital of Europe 2018, while exploring new disciplines in the short film One of Us.

In 2021 she releases Plant, a probing album, which the press hails as hypnotic, like a musical film in which you lose yourself. With timeless lyrics like ‘Your Ancestor’, she doesn’t hold back, homing in on the way we, as people, inhabit the Earth, while also challenging us to do some real soul-searching: ‘through my music I hope to conjure up a world in which people are able to listen to themselves more closely.’

Her latest show, OAK, is a magical journey through the realm of the soul, where trees, animals and stones tell their story. Together with sound artist Sytze Pruiksma, using songs, spoken word and storytelling, she weaves an ingenious musical landscape, sometimes edgy and contemporary, sometimes with the mesmerising cadence of an ancient ritual.