In this interview, we talk with Vivienne Aerts, a New York City–based vocalist, composer, and producer known for blending voice, looping, electronics, and experimental performance. Vivienne shares how she first discovered looping technology and how it became a key part of her live performances. She also reflects on her path from studying psychology and jazz to teaching at Berklee College of Music, where she explores the connection between creativity, mindfulness, and musical freedom. Along the way, she talks about collaborative projects that mix music with edible art, the inspiration behind her large-scale album featuring 100 female musicians, and her unique upcoming project—an album recorded on a sailboat.
I’ve seen you perform using vocals, keys, and looping. How did you start using looping in your music?
I was always singing, and I actually went to the conservatory to study all that. But then in 2009, there was an app for looping on the phone that I saw on TV. And I’m like, wow, that’s great. So I got the iPad and started looping myself on it, and it was very fun. Then I made an a cappella record. My first album was with a band, like a jazz quintet, and the second album was completely vocal. So I needed a way to be able to perform it, and I went more and more into looping. Now we’re years later, and I still really like it and keep experimenting with it.
You teach at Berklee. How does teaching music influence your own work as an artist?
I grew up playing piano and singing, and then I studied psychology and went to the conservatory for choir conducting and singing. At the same time, I did my bachelor’s and master’s in clinical psychology. In the daytime, I was a psychologist in the Netherlands, and in the evenings I had five choirs. On the weekends, I would perform with my band. Then I went to Boston to study more at Berklee in 2012. I decided to write more original works, and I started performing more. After I graduated, I was hired at Berklee right away to work at this institute, which focuses on mental health while performing. By now, I teach my own classes, which focus on experimental performance but also mindfulness. If you really feel free with your music, it has a lot to do not just with technique and your ears, but with you as a person as well. I teach all the different instruments how to just be free within their music. Obviously that influences me. It’s all related to how I work as an artist, because I have two main projects. One is me as a singer-songwriter, which is more jazzy. The other project is with desserts, with my husband, who is a pastry chef. We collaborate on projects that involve edible artwork and sound.
So how would you describe your music to someone hearing it for the first time?
People have described it as angelic. The last album I produced was all original songs that I wrote. I hired a hundred female musicians. It’s all my compositions arranged with different groups of people performing on them. One song became a Cuban big band bolero, another became more like an experimental string quartet, and there’s one song with a choir. In between, there are sounds from 1,500 women in Congo. We worked with this chocolate brand that’s good for people, good for nature, and good for quality—Original Beans. One of their projects is a female cacao collective in Virunga National Park in Congo, and I was able to get some sounds from them and integrate that into the album. So that album is really like a collage of different flavors. Generally, all my songs are hopeful, I would say. I hope people can listen to them and feel a little bit better about themselves and about the world. The new album has just been recorded, and it will come out in June. It was recorded on a sailboat. The album is going to be called Current. My husband and I lived on the boat for two weeks while recording. We love to work together, and by now we collaborate on all these different projects. So yes, we were on this boat for two weeks and recorded the environment—the water, underwater, and above the water, birds—and used a lot of synthesizers, electronics, and loop stations. I recorded my voice in layers. This album sounds a little more electronic than the previous one. So I would say maybe it has a bit of a Norah Jones meets James Blake vibe.
Did you learn to produce yourself, or did you have to go to school for that?
Well, nowadays you can learn a lot online. But in my case, I grew up going to the conservatory, and there wasn’t so much computer-based music when I learned my craft. At Berklee, I was mainly focused on singing very complex avant-garde jazz because I was in the Global Jazz Program. But after graduating, I felt I needed to write more. I started getting more into the production side—like, let me just make my own things and then tweak them. Especially with the women and chocolate album, all of that was done remotely because there were 100 women from 40 countries sending in their parts. Over the years, I also took several courses at Berklee—more geeky classes like mixing and mastering and digital signal processing. I also took classes on sound design and modular synthesis.
Was last year your first time participating in Make Music Day? How did you find out about it?
I think I connected through one of these Facebook groups. I saw it in my timeline and it caught my attention. I had also seen a couple of friends perform in it in previous years. Normally I tour in Europe in June, but last year we were in New York for a change, so it worked out with the dates. I checked out the website and the different locations there were.
How was your Make Music Day performance?
I had the most wonderful experience. In the morning, I performed at the Naval Cemetery Landscape Memorial Park, which was such a beautiful space. They had this little platform that looked out onto a sea of grass, which was super nice. Then, in the afternoon, I was at Prospect Heights Community Farm. People were so nice, and it was a collage of different artists, too, so I got to see a little bit of what they were doing. I was performing with the loop station in that community garden, and at one point the birds started echoing one of my voices. It was really cool to engage with the community like that.
So what’s next for you? Any new music or shows coming up?
The boat album is coming out this summer, and there will be concerts on boats as well. For obvious reasons, that’s what we need to do. We’ll do some boat concerts in America, where the audience can come onto the boat, either docked or floating somewhere. Then we’ll also do some in Europe at the end of August.
Finally, what advice would you give to someone who wants to become a musician or artist?
Just don’t give up. Trust yourself and find your audience—find the people who like what you do. Don’t focus on going viral. Find yourself a little niche, and that bubble will grow because those people will stick with you and support you in different ways. And don’t let anybody tell you what to do. Just be a good person.