Together with violinist Geerte de Koe, Maaike has been the artistic director of Stichting Art Root Collective since 2017.
The collective is a creative group for young musicians living in refugee centers and their Dutch fellow musicians.
They organize workshops, a musical leadership training, summer camps, and jam sessions for this group.
Maaike and Geerte organize and lead all the workshops together.​
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The Art Root Intensive is an immersive summer week where newcomers and Dutch musicians are immersed in a creative musical group process together.
During the Intensive, the group lives as a family for 5 days in the community center 'De Gasterije' in Gasteren (Drenthe). Here, they not only share their musical experiences with each other but also work together on setting up tents and preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
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The group starts each day with yoga and meditation before diving into the creative process. In this process, they collectively compose new musical pieces, which they perform at the end of the Intensive week for the residents of Gasteren and other interested parties. In the evenings there are jams around the campfire, and during a silent walk in nature, they get to know themselves and each other better in various ways.
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The Intensive is intertwined with the local nature and residents. Last summer, the group created music inspired by stories from elderly locals during the coffee morning at the local community center. Els, a village resident, volunteered to cook fantastically for them every evening, and the group spontaneously held a pop-up garden concert for a sick neighbor. The connections and interactions with the people from the village have made Art Root Collective an integral part of the village of Gasteren. The villagers truly live up to their name: Gast Eren (Guest Honour).
