Education and early development
Sonja Béets graduated cum laude in organ and piano from the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. After her studies, she specialised in chamber music — particularly the art of the lied — with George van Renesse and Nelly Wagenaar, and through masterclasses in the Netherlands and abroad, including with Györgi Sebök.
She has performed in the Netherlands and internationally, including in Antwerp, Mechelen, Brussels, Berlin, Essen, Dresden, Paris and New York. Her compositions have been broadcast in the Netherlands, Belgium, England and the United States.
Parallel to her musical development, she explored non‑Western philosophy, culture and music. In this context, she learned to play the Sarangi in the dhrupad style, the oldest devotional tradition of North Indian music. She also completed studies in psychology, further enriching her artistic and personal development.
Artistic activities
Alongside her work as a performing musician, Sonja is active as a composer, painter and poet. She published a poetry collection privately and has exhibited in various locations, including the Gothic Hall of the Council of State in The Hague.
Since 1989, she has composed intensively, encouraged by Györgi Sebök, Martijn van den Hoek, Herman Ulhorn and Bernard Kruysen. For her ensemble Purusha, she regularly writes new works, drawing inspiration from the personality and timbre of the musicians. In her songs, all voices are equal; voice and instruments form a single, unified whole.
Projects and initiatives
In 1997, she co‑founded the foundation Muzenstede, aimed at promoting integration and symbiosis between people and the arts, as well as collaboration between different artistic disciplines. From this vision, she initiated the project The Musical City Walk in Wijk bij Duurstede in 2000, for which she set nine poems by Willem de Mérode to music and produced a recording. The project received national attention, including on radio and television, and marked her official debut as a composer.
In 2003, she completed the chamber opera The Ingenuous (De Argeloze), with a libretto by Tom Sol after Voltaire. In the following years, she worked on various multidisciplinary projects, including a presentation on Flemish cultural heritage in 2005. Her work for carillon, Had we the wings…, was chosen in 2009 as the compulsory piece for the public examinations with great distinction of the Royal Carillon School “Jef Denyn” in Mechelen.
France and recent activities
Since 2007, she has lived and worked in France, where she founded La Grange des Arts and the choir Chant’enscène. Sonja organises house concerts and performs with various musicians and artists, for whom she regularly writes new compositions, including a cello concerto (2016).
Since 2009, she has also played the Celtic harp. Her music is published by DMP / UMMP in Antwerp.
Current work
She is currently working on a book about the personal and societal consequences of dysfunctional families and narcissistic wounds.