Stofsugersjongers Femke IJlstra

• Micha Hamel (b. 1970):
• 1Femke d'r Solo05:25
• Hilary Tann (b. 1947):
• 2Wings of the Grasses03:47
• Guillermo Lago (b. 1960):
• 3Femke en La Gran Ciudad07:20
• Claude Young:
• 4Lullaby for a Mourning Child07:51
• Geert Schoonbeek de Vlaming (1897 - 1964):
• 5De Bazuin03:51
• Mark-Anthony Turnage (b. 1960):
• 6Two Memorials04:14
• Total Runtime32:28

Info for Stofsugersjongers

Stofsugersjongers is a collection of poetry, etches and music from Tsead Bruinja, Mirka Farabegoli en Femke IJlstra about leaving, coming back and grounding, back in the days versus now, about not wanting to go home and the love which suffers from not wanting to go home and the same love which eventually overcomes.

The project was entitled Stofsûgersjongers (Vacuum Cleaner Singers). The poem did not survive the selection, but the title was taken and on the advice of Bruinja, a collaboration was also sought with visual artist Mirka Farabegoli, who previously, following a workshop, invited him to write new work at her first exhibition "God Made Me Funky".

So what started as an idea for a theater program became a book and an album ith poems, compositions, and etchings about coming home in the broadest sense of the word. Coming home in the present and the past and how possible and impossible that is.

Femke IJlstra, soprano saxophone
Menna Elfyn, vocals

Femke IJlstra
(1982) studied saxophone with Arno Bornkamp on The Amsterdam Conservatory. In 2009 she finished her master degree with distinction.

Femke plays on a regularly basis with leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She also plays in Anima Eterna, a Belgian orchestra that is specialized in period instrument performance. In 2016 she won the audition to play saxophone in Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, Switzerland.

As a soloist, Femke plays with many different orchestras. She made many radio recordings and appeared on Dutch television. She is also a regular guest in various music festivals.

Next to her activities as a soloist, Femke loves chamber music: besides playing in Syrène Saxophone Quartet she plays soprano saxophone in the renowned Aurelia Saxophone Quartet and has a duo with percussion, MUSU. They performed in Amsterdam, The Hague as well in St. Petersburg, Paris and Berlin. In September 2012 she record her first album together with poems and artwork in a book called Stofsugersjongers. On this album she plays music from M. A. Turnage, and new pieces written for her.

Femke is saxophone professor at the Hanze University of applied Science of Groningen.

Booklet for Stofsugersjongers