Musical life story
The very first accordion was a toy accordion that started it all.
This one, as you can see, is still in her possession.
At the age of 5 she received her first piano lessons in her native village Gemert in North Brabant.
However, she wanted to study the accordion herself, after all, that was her instrument with John Woodhouse as idol.
On her 8th birthday she finally got an 80 bass keyboard accordion with which she would have her first lesson not much later.
Due to financial problems in the family, she had to quit classes at the age of 11. After that she never took keyboard accordion lessons again, but she continued to play the accordion.
Her turn to another instrument was in her 14th year when her mother bought an organ.
Due to illness, her mother could no longer take the lessons and Heidi-Rose took lessons in her place.
Because of the accordion lessons and self-study from her mother’s books, she was already far ahead of the other group students and was still refused to take her mother’s lessons.
One of the last songs from those textbooks was Ave Maria, which she had taught herself not much later and after a while she could also play completely by heart.
Because of this number she was asked to become a permanent church organist of the parish of St. Jozef in Gemert at the age of 21, which she immediately accepted. Not much later she was able to pay for her first real organ lessons herself.
This came to an end 1.5 months before the birth of her oldest child in October 1988. From that time she remained a reserve until she emigrated to Belgium at the end of 1990 and had to say goodbye to her parish.
In Belgium she continued to make music on her accordion as well as on the organ and not much later became a member of an accordion association in Neeroeteren. At that moment she switched from keyboard to button accordion at the same time.
Thanks to her children, she had picked up her church organ study again and took lessons in the music academy there and despite the difficult years, divorce and children that were taken from her by her ex, she continued to study organ up to and including High-degree 2 Instrument.
She was not allowed to finish the final exam for High-degree 3 instrument due to her ankle injury, but she did pass High-degree 3 ensemble. Ensemble playing is a slightly lower level than Instrument, which meant that she did not have to strain her ankle as much.
During one of the accordions she came into contact with the steirische harmonika.
Heidi-Rose also wanted to try this instrument, but she has made an extra study of this, so that she is currently better on her steirische harmonika than on her accordion.
But that will soon change again due to the arrival of a new accordion that she received at the beginning of June 2020, with which she is currently rehearsing the song Nola by Felix Arndt.
In July 2014 she started with her steirische harmonica as a regular street musician in Maaseik where she could be heard every Wednesday morning.
Because she could no longer cope with the climb to the church organ due to the permanent ankle injury, she started playing the piano 7 years later to be admitted to the Municipal Conservatory in Hasselt after 2 years, where she was promoted to pianist and composer.
During her piano studies at the conservatory, she had first temporarily stopped in the winter months and then said goodbye to her street activities for good on September 4, 2019.
Due to the sudden departure of her teacher from the conservatory in September 2020, she suddenly found herself without 1 teacher while she was going to graduate there that year. Because of an email from the conservatory in which they wrote that they were looking for a new teacher but that it was very difficult to find an equivalent replacement, she decided to go after her teacher.
As a result, she also left the conservatory and continues to take lessons with her own teacher, at the music academy in Neerpelt.
Together they have a very unique teacher-student relationship from the beginning.
Heidi-Rose became a composer because of him.
She also continued to play her steirische harmonika, with which a video went online on April 29, 2021 in which she can be seen and heard together with the great well-known singer, King of the Dutch life song, Jacques Herb. This video can be seen on Jacques Herb’s YouTube channel. Link: https://youtu.be/01JYdimbYD8
On 8 and 17 May 2021, Heidi-Rose took her final exams in which she performed Combatterò per te (a composition of her own) and Liebestraum nr 3 by Franz Liszt.
She passed her exam with flying colors (+90%), which means she can continue studying in the specialization year.
In between, Heidi-Rose also studied guitar, mandolin, zither, hackbrett and harp.
And alphorn, but she quickly abandoned that, but with this she managed to make it to the newspaper with photos and all. If you bump into Heidi-Rose somewhere on a terrace, feel free to ask her, she is always willing to play some songs because her steirische harmonika will never be far away from her.