Posted on July 8th, 2024

Celebrating our nomination to the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, we would like to share some memories from the journey we had during the production of our debut audiovisual album Viriditas.

Everything began in the beginning of 2023 when Maya Fridman, the co-founder and artistic director of the audiophile immersive music label TRPTK, reached out to us for a meeting at the label’s studio. There, we had the pleasure of meeting Maya and her husband Brendon Heinst, who is the founder and senior engineer of TRPTK. Our conversation about music, art, and immersive sound was truly inspiring, and they expressed their keen interest in collaborating with our ensemble.

At the studio, we experienced immersive audio for the first time, which was fascinating and gradually created a whole new way of listening, where illusions of sound alternate and redefine the perception of both space and time. We found it to be somehow a very contemporary perspective on experiencing sound.

After some months of brainstorming, Brendon came up with the idea of creating an audiovisual album in order to deliver a cinematic and immersive experience of medieval music, something that is completely unique for the early music scene, and particularly the medieval music world. We are extremely grateful to both Maya and Brendon for all the support and production of this huge project.

The inspiration for Viriditas blossomed while reading Scivias (1151/1152) by Hildegard von Bingen. Stay tuned for another post where we delve into the concept and repertoire of the album!

The medieval Westerkerk in Enkhuizen

On the morning of September 25th, 2023, we packed up everything and hit the road to the little city of Enkhuizen in North Holland. The church volunteers, Jos Lankreijer and Cees Molenaar, welcomed us warmly for the rehearsal as we were getting familiar with the amazing acoustics. Brendon and Antal van Nee, the assistant recording engineer of TRPTK, arrived the same evening to prepare the set up. You can read more about the audio setup and equipment on TRPTK’s blog.

The construction of the Westerkerk, dedicated to Saint Gommarus, began around 1470, and it’s on the UNESCO list among the ‘top 100’ of Dutch monuments. The floor of the church is completely covered with tombstones, with more than 1500 graves. The choir fence you can see in the music film dates back to 1542 and has the most beautiful wood carving made in the Netherlands in the Renaissance style. It also has a hidden 17th-century library, which is the oldest in the Netherlands that is still preserved in its original state.

All the historical aspects we learned about the church were a huge source of inspiration for the upcoming day of the recording.

Preparation and Recordings

Early morning of the 26th, the cinematographer Jonas Sacks, also director of the NativeDSD platform, and his amazing crew of camera operators and lighting technicians arrived at the Westerkerk. The team consisted of Django de Groot, Maurits Helfensteijn and Babet Ruijzenaars.

The seamless collaboration and dedication resulted in a breathtaking session for all of us. The whole recording of the video album was completed in just six hours, leaving everyone very tired but at the same time in an ecstatic trance.

Recording Viriditas was an absolutely magical experience, and a realization of a dream. The production left us utterly fulfilled and entranced as we departed the Westerkerk.

Here are some pictures capturing the camera crew setting up the video equipment:

Artwork and booklet

The visual aspect of the album was just as important to us as the music. We wanted the album cover and accompanying visuals to reflect the mysticism and connection with nature. For the album cover and the editorial pictures, we spent seven hours on a multi-photoshoot with Brendon Heinst, who also has a career in the photography world, in a magical forest of Utrecht.

In the booklet, we included some additional stills from the video album that capture the beauty of the church and share the aesthetic of the cinematic work.

The Release!

The entirety of the album’s production was carried out in close collaboration with Brendon, followed by the video editing. The pinnacle of our journey was the release of the album on March 15th, 2024, which filled us with immense joy as we could finally share this beautiful music and vision.

This extraordinary collaboration and project captured unforgettable moments, full of light, joy, and beauty, for which we will always be grateful. We hope that we will continue to share this wonderful music and craft unique experiences for our audiences.

You can order our Super Audio CD, download the high-resolution or immersive audio through TRPTK’s website:

The Video Download comes in an MKV container with (4K UHD or HD) Blu-ray quality video, with Stereo 192kHz 24bit LPCM, 5-channel 96kHz 24bit DTS HD MA, as well as 5.1.4-channel Auro-3D and Dolby Atmos TrueHD:

We would love to know your thoughts and ideas about our journey. Feel free to share your comments or ask us any questions!

All the photos were captured by Babet Ruijzenaars.