What Is That Job?

Frances Marie Uitti is a contemporary Cellist, Composer and inventor. She has collaborated over years with contemporary composers, Dick Raaijmakers, John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi, Iannis Xenakis, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough and countless composers from the new generation. She has toured extensively as a soloist throughout the world from New York, Europe, Japan, and the United States. She premiered cello concertos dedicated to her by Per Norgaard, Dick Raaijmakers, Jonathan Harvey, James Tenney and Peter Nelson. She is renowned for inventing the two bow technique, which has the cellist playing with two bows in one hand. She has redesigning the upper and lower bows used in the two bow technique under tutelage of Andreas Grutter, master bow maker. Frances frequently travels to Bhutan and is founder of the Bhutan Music Foundation, a charitable non-profit which promotes the music of Bhutan, musical education of Bhutanese and the preservation of Bhutanese indigenous music. Websites and links: http://www.uit

In this episode I interview Anke Mein, yoga teacher and co-owner of Yogashala in the Hague, The Netherlands. Anke has a passion for teaching yoga from a place of intuition. She specialises in yoga tailored to healing wounds and injuries, recovery from work-induced burnout or emotional overload. “For me yoga is a tool for empowerment, it’s through yoga that I have found my strength. It helps me put things into perspective and it’s a way of expressing myself.”  For more info check out the website: http://www.yogashala.nl Check out the video we made: https://youtu.be/im8qsbbIKZY

In this episode I interview an incredible violinist and violin maker named Dmitry Badiarov (http://Badiarovviolins.com). He has been responsible for the revival of the violoncello da spalla (youtube is your friend if you want to see and hear it). I have been making violin as an amateur with Dmitry for the past few years. He is an incredible teacher and inspirational human being with a gift for beauty and detail. Violin Making is one of the oldest professions in the world. This episode explores this fascinating world. Dmitry explains how someone can get into the world of violin making. 

In this episode I had the chance to interview my sister Isabelle who is a management consultant at one of the leading consulting companies in the world. She has a rather strange path into the world of consulting and is living proof that the lessons you learn along the way are often more important the the topic or content of what you are studying. If you are new to the world of consulting, then this episode will certainly give you an insight into this interesting world of elite corporate life.

I have huge amounts of respect for the work of teachers and lecturers. They teach, educate and mould the people we ultimately become.  Elizabeth Joss is a lecturer, freelance writer and founder / author for http://www.themuseumtimes.com a website aimed at increasing visibility to smaller, lesser know museums. She also appeared in one of my videos where we discovered an architectural gem in the Netherlands called the Moses Bridge: https://youtu.be/OVmU5nmPQyc Check out my other videos at: http://www.youtube.com/DutchifiedBlog 

There are only approximately 200 professional sand and ice sculptors in the world and Nicola Wood is one of them. She has won multiple prizes including two gold medals at the World Championship of Sand Sculpting in 2007 and 2010, a silver medal at the European Sand Sculpting Championships in 2012 and the public choice award in 2014. I got the chance to interview her during the construction of the Netherlands Ice Sculpture Festival where she even allowed me to carve out a small section.

In this first podcast episode of What is that job, I interview my friend Grietje Even who is a TV presenter and voiceover artist. She is also an all round videographer who hosts, edits, directs and connects people through stories on TV and Youtube. I've always been interested in what the job of a TV presenter entails. On the surface it appears to be fairly easy and rather glamorous. During the interview Grietje set the record straight by sharing her experiences and insights. Grietje spent some time in theatre directing where one of the difficulties to contend with is the fact that the work follows you around constantly. It's difficult to disengage. This is a common problem with many jobs. One of my favourite quotes that Grietje used was, "It's not a job you do, it's a thing that sticks around with you". You can find Grietje on social media channels @TravelGretl Check out my youtube channel and social media @DutchifiedBlog