Singer Janneke Warringa from Lemmer was born for happiness: ‘I am doing well now, music is in me’

When Janneke Warringa recently stood in the Poiesz in Lemmer, with a large cart of groceries in front of her in a long line, she discovered at the cash register that she had forgotten her wallet. Another customer came to the rescue, paid for her groceries and said: I’ll send a little bit. Such a simple, adequate solution, one full of confidence – that made a great impression on the singer. It was a good example of practical kindness, she says, from a small and seemingly simple gesture, but one with major consequences.

Because small kindness is contagious, it is contagious: when Janneke stood in the same queue at the cash register a few weeks later and a woman in front of her in the queue had forgotten her bank card, she immediately knew what she had to do. Before she knew it, Janneke had already paid and said: I’ll send you a little bit. The woman was perplexed. You made my day, she said. So that, says Janneke beaming, that is also ubuntu.

Ubuntu is an originally South African concept, a philosophical concept that is based on a deep interconnectedness of people with each other. No one stands alone, no one stands alone, everyone is part of a close-knit social system. It is a term that has fascinated her for a long time. Together with pianist Peter van der Zwaag, and coached by ubuntu experts Jan Terlouw and his life partner Annette Mul, she has now created an entire song program around it. An evening full of hope and comfort, encouraging words, meaningful words, she promises.

Luck

The 38-year-old singer lives with her husband and their two children in a new-build house on the water in Lemmer. Everything in and around the house breathes happiness – the photo wall in the toilet, the postcards with encouraging sayings and life wisdom, the use of color in the interior, the stack of sheet music in front of the piano, the flowers. Life here is good, Janneke nods, we are doing well, there are beautiful summer months behind us, with lots of time, space and love for each other. Her parents live nearby, also in Lemmer, and take care of the children a few days a week. Man Merijn works as a psychologist and Janneke is on the eve of two major tours: of the performance Flood and of her new show Ubuntu .

So yes, last night the fun was over for a while, after all those long, lazy summer weeks full of unlimited attention for each other, Janneke had to get back to work. Her daughter, a slow eater, was still eating her evening meal, had to go to bed and Janneke urgently had to get to work on her shows, with music, PR and marketing. So it was a quick goodnight kiss, father had to do the rest of the evening ritual. That took some getting used to, for everyone.

Keep calm

A busy life, with a family, the shows and also her own acoustic trio FAAM with which Janneke performs at parties throughout the Netherlands and with which she travels to Curacao in February. She now knows how to maintain her inner peace – by taking the day step by step, not overseeing everything at once, but in pieces. And she succeeds, she beams, she gets a lot done.

The time of partying and lazing around, of procrastination and avoidance behavior is over. She completely lived out that phase at HAVO; She took seven years to complete that course, was expelled from school in Emmeloord because she had failed twice, but ultimately passed quickly at Bogerman in Sneek, where her father is a geography teacher and coordinator.

Rambunctious teenager

She was a rambunctious teenager, she paid more attention to her friends and parties than to the class material, it was that simple. What was always there, a constant in her life, is the music, just like with the rest of her family. She has always been able to focus on this, even as a toddler, and she easily puts things aside for music.

At the age of three, her mother likes to say, little Janneke already asked for a ‘sette recorder’ (a cassette recorder), she sang as a six-year-old in a children’s choir, was the youngest member and, very exceptionally, was allowed to play the role of Maria in the John Passion to sing. The pastor said afterwards: she has already made it. “I remember that well. And how important those words were to me.” A benchmark, a confirmation of something she knew deep inside.

Journalism

Positive, benevolent words make a person grow, Janneke knows, compliments give self-confidence and provide encouragement. And she desperately needed such words at first. She played it safe: wanted to go to the conservatory, but did not dare to take the step yet. That audition, the tension around it, it was against her. That is why she first studied journalism, in a less scary and confrontational way.

But eventually, in the third year of her journalism studies, Janneke auditioned for the preliminary training at the conservatory in Zwolle. She was immediately admitted to the full-time light music course (pop and jazz) and said goodbye to journalism. She was where she needed to be, in the middle of the music.

Performance drive

Four tough years followed. Her ambitious fellow students, the elbow grease, the urge to perform, combined with a main subject teacher with a strong personal preference for certain students, meant that Janneke – one of the few Frisians on the course – did not always feel at home. During the weekend she traveled north as quickly as she could – to her friends and her part-time job in a clothing store in Sneek. “I’m not made for that striving mentality, that elbow grease, I don’t like that hard thing.”

It also had an impact on her voice: it was always different during a performance than at a rehearsal or when she sang quietly to herself. Very frustrating. Stress took its toll. “Only now do I realize that I was of course not the only one who was insecure, everyone was at the conservatory. That’s why people walked around wearing such a hard mask. But I didn’t realize that at the time.”

After four years she graduated, but she was “done with it for a while”, while her fellow students continued fanatically into the music world, Janneke took a surprising side path. “I literally gasped for air, became a flight attendant, just for a short time, but it was wonderful, I could catch my breath and had a lot of fun and saw a lot.”

After her short career on the air, she became a singing teacher at various northern music schools, further improved her singing technique and came to the conclusion that her voice had matured. “I was literally stiff at first, I couldn’t control my nerves, but I gained more and more confidence in who I am, what my voice is, what my voice can do.” When she had her son just before she was thirty, there was a definitive turning point was reached – suddenly the much-needed self-confidence about her qualities was there, and with it a fresh start to her singing career.

“You know what it is – I’m doing well now, music is in me, it’s part of me, I now trust that I was made for this.” Is she a late bloomer in that sense? “Haha, I once described it that way, but then my husband said, not at all, you’re just there at the right time!”

Voice as an instrument

Her voice is now an instrument she can rely on. Before she enters the stage, Janneke hardly sings, she only does ‘the siren’ (screeching from low to high and back again) and she ‘cracks’ something – a massage for the vocal cords. When there is a kink in her voice during the siren, a hitch, she knows she cannot perform at full strength that evening. She has also realized that parties with alcohol and conversations with a lot of raising her voice do not benefit her singing qualities. In that respect, she is now in a very good period, because with two performances under her belt she has to save, cherish and spoil her voice.

Van der Zwaag

Janneke has been working with pianist Peter van der Zwaag for four years, a golden combination. He gives her wings and, yes, self-confidence again. For example, while working with him, the singer discovered that she can also sing very loudly and narratively, like a grand artist. “It was a hit between us from the first note, we never let go of each other.”

She is also now working with Van der Zwaag on the Ubuntu program. “This program contains the core of why I sing: besides the fact that it is just fun to sing, it can also be meaningful, you can make people happy, express emotions, name things, make real contact.”

The song program is about humanism and love, about hope and cooperation. A text by Martin Luther King is performed, accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Peter van der Zwaag – talking and singing suddenly appear to be close together.

The connecting lyrics between the songs by Stef Bos, Jenny Arean, Nina Simone, Liesbeth List, Cyndi Lauper and Douwe Heeringa, among others, were created in close consultation with writer and former politician Jan Terlouw and his life companion and ubuntu expert Annette Mul. “Ubuntu is about the bigger picture, that we are all part of something bigger. As individuals we cannot change much about wars and poverty, but we can be meaningful in our own environment. And it works both ways, I’m sure: if you make someone else happy, you become happier yourself.”

That her loved ones have been and continue to be so good to her, that she has been able to follow her heart, makes her emotional: that everything turned out exactly as it should. The singer wipes away some tears. She refers again to the Poiesz anecdote: it is nice to be kind to someone else and it is contagious and inspiring. “Smiling at someone when you cycle past, it’s so easy, but you have to do it.”

Source of inspiration

Janneke’s mother is an important source of inspiration for the singer, she taught asylum seekers Dutch, always sings, is a real emotional person, a good person too, according to her daughter. “I try to pass on that warm feeling that I learned from her to my children.”

She quotes her grandmother who, when her children were young, always said in the fall that “the buds of spring were already on the trees.” That’s beautiful and true, she thinks. That’s what you have to look at, without being naive, at the beauty that surrounds you. “My mother always says it this way: child, go outside and listen to the birds. It’s that simple. I am learning more and more to see the beauty of life, to live in the moment.”

Well, one more example then. When there used to be a thunderstorm – Janneke was terribly afraid of it – she would stand at the window with her father and they would watch the thunder, trembling and worried. Until her father said: ‘Look Janneke, it’s getting lighter there again!’ Janneke, firmly: “For me, that is your purest ubuntu.”

Ubuntu will premiere on October 20 in the De Koornbeurs theater in Franeker. For tickets and playlist: www.lajannmusic.nl/ubuntu