Interview with festival composer Noah Senden
Noah studied composition with Wim Henderickx at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. Henderickx had a profound impact on him, both musically and personally. During his studies, he was also taught by Bram Van Camp, Mathias Coppens and others. Another key experience was his Erasmus stay at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn, where he studied with Tõnu Kõrvits and encountered the Baltic choir tradition for the first time. This was a period that greatly expanded his perspective on sound, simplicity and spirituality in music, and one that played an important role in shaping his artistic identity.
Musica Divina stands for heavenly music in divine locations and the healing power of music. What does that healing aspect mean to you?
For me, the healing aspect of music mainly means that it can create space. Space where time seems to slow down and you can break free from the constant stream of stimuli.
I don’t believe healing is about making reality more beautiful or imposing something soothing. It’s more about allowing vulnerability. Music can open a space where emotions and thoughts can simply exist without immediately needing to be explained or resolved.
When the musicians and audience listen together, something special can occur, a moment of shared attention. A kind of collective reflection arises. Sound has the power to take people out of their own heads for a while and bring them back into connectedness with each other.
How is truth expressed in your music, or by extension, how are moments of truth expressed?
For me, truth in music often begins with something very small. A short motif, a simple movement, something that immediately feels familiar but also opens up into something that you have never heard before. These little building blocks are what bear the weight of a piece and generate a feeling of both recognition and surprise.
Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle thought that music could express a universal order or truth. For me, it’s not about a message that you can read or explain, but moments that suddenly make something essential audible. The German philosopher Heidegger calls that ‘Aletheia’: the revelation of truth. In music, it might be a sudden moment that you feel, a moment that touches you, without you being entirely able to pin it down. It’s not an idea you’re given but an experience that unfolds. A small, pure point of truth.
How does your creative process work?
The concept plays a prominent role in the creative process, and it only takes concrete shape at my writing desk in a later phase. Then things sometimes move fast. I like to start with a simple idea from outside music: a spoken or sung text, a social issue, a story, a movement, the qualities of water or the perception of time. So actually, my musical thinking is a bit dramaturgical. Music in itself is movement, but also a language. You can portray something with it, make something tangible, without having to put it entirely into words.
Choir music is an essential aspect of your work. Do you write differently for choirs than for instrumental ensembles?
Using the voice is probably the most human way to make music. It literally comes from the body: from breath, resonance, language. So when you write for a choir, you are working with something very physical and direct.
That means that there is a big difference for me between writing for a choir and writing for instruments. They’re almost two different disciplines. In recent years I’ve been able to write more for choirs, and that has also changed my instrumental music. When I write for instruments, the possibilities are almost unlimited: sound colours, textures, virtuosity, extreme dynamics. But maybe that is exactly the reason that I love coming back to choir music so much. Whenever I write for singers, it feels a bit like returning to the origin of music.
There is no way I can give up writing for instruments, though. The musicians act as the medium I use to convey my message to the audience. Sometimes writing for a choir feels like working with watercolours: transparent, direct and organic. Instruments are more like oil paint: richer, more layered and more precise. In both cases, though, I am really just trying to do the same thing: make the idea inside myself as clearly audible as possible.
How do you work with text? Which texts have you used in the past?
I find that text can be a very strong driver in a musical concept. It’s like an impulse from outside the music: an image, a thought, an emotion that immediately gives the piece a direction. What fascinates me most is how music can add an extra layer to the poetic power of a text, with the result that words are not just heard but genuinely felt. That applies to both music theatre and choir music.
In the past, for example, I have worked with Clara Cleymans and Johannes Wirix-Speetjens on various music theatre projects. In that kind of process, text is often the guiding principle that engages in constant dialogue with the music. My girlfriend Lieze Denckens wrote the words to some of my choir pieces. We know each other so well that the writing process comes very naturally, and ultimately you also sense that in the music.
I really like working with a wide range of different texts. The most important thing for me is that space is created where music can add an extra layer and deepen the power of the text.
In 2026, we are surrounded by different types of music, both different genres and different contexts: how do you deal with that as a composer?
I actually see that variety as an immense richness. In 2026, it’s almost impossible for an emerging composer to settle on a single signature, and to be honest, I don’t want to. I can’t. I love being stimulated by different kinds of commission and context. Of course my passion is still writing for the classical concert hall, but I am equally attracted to music theatre, film, games or podcasts.
At the same time, I’m continuing to search for a very personal, contemporary language. The loveliest moment is after a première when someone says: “That sounded just like Noah.†Even when I have the feeling that I was trying something totally new – or maybe especially then. For me, the real challenge is continuing to stimulate the audience without losing contact with them.
You lived in Tallinn for a while: how did that period influence you as a composer?
My experiences in Estonia were mainly focused on composition, and that period really expanded my musical perspective immensely. I studied with Tõnu Kõrvits there, who was already one of my great role models, and he gave me the chance to immerse myself completely in a culture where music and choir singing are ubiquitous. Estonia is really a land of choirs: people sing everywhere, from choirs in the fire brigade to the massive Laulupidu, which brings together an amazing 32,000 singers. I attended it live and was completely blown away by the power of all those voices.
A special moment that I’ll never forget is the evening when Tõnu Kõrvits introduced me to Arvo Pärt, and I had the chance to speak to him briefly. That meeting made a deep impression and inspired me so much that when I returned to Antwerp, I devoted my master’s thesis to his work.
To what extent is the European spiritual minimalism tradition a source of inspiration for you?
The European spiritual minimalism tradition appeals to me because it shows how powerful simplicity can be. During my research into Arvo Pärt, I was strongly influenced by it. However I soon noticed that it’s not a style you can simply adopt. Pärt himself says that the essence of tintinnabuli corresponds to breathing but understanding it takes years of maturation. What inspires me most is how this tradition never makes simplicity superficial. On the contrary, there is often an enormous concentration and attention to detail behind that simplicity.
By giving you a commission for a piece that can be adapted to different contexts and ensembles, Musica Divina is trying to reconnect to the way music was viewed before the 19th century, or thereabouts. How are you going to tackle the commission? What are the biggest challenges?
For this commission, I actually want to make a kind of core that is always recognisable but comes to life differently in each performance. As Arvo Pärt does in Fratres: the same material, but it sounds different every time, depending on the space, ensemble and individual voices or instruments. That’s also what makes it exciting. You have a fixed ‘point of truth’, something that never disappears, but inside that core there’s space to play, discover and react to the specificity of the ensemble.