Hello, I am Karen van Schaik. I am a saxophonist, composer, improviser and multidisciplinary artist. I play and write music for circus, theatre, dance and for my own project “HU!”. Besides writing and playing music, I draw, paint, write, build and design furniture, design costumes… anything that’s about creating!
Before my music studies at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, I studied Architecture at Delft University of Technology. As an architecture enthousiast, my music often has a visual aspect to it, that is either expressed in the combination with different art forms, or in the underlying concepts of the compositions.
My music is about human struggles, kindred souls, imprisoning gender stereotypes, anger, love, worries about climate change, self acceptance and finding ones place in this crazy fast moving world.
“I have always partly been living in the colourful world of my imagination. It’s a safe place where I can hide from the scary and overwhelming outside world. I am always searching for ways to bring parts of this imaginary world to the real world, it is a beautiful way to connect with people and to bring people together.”

Drawing by ©Karen van Schaik