Intimate poetic music in various languages


ZEA's music can only be described as personal and poetic. Arnold de Boer's Frisian band has been around for two decades and has performed across the world, often in Frisian. Their minimal, intimate music – often acoustic – ensures that listeners are captivated from the get-go.

ZEA will be presenting their latest unique album, Witst noch dat d'r neat, in a major show at Explore the North. All of the songs on the album have been translated into four other languages. In addition to Frisian, this included Dutch and English, along with another (fourth) language suited to the song, such as Sranantongo or the Wuhan dialect Wǔhànhuà. Friends helped him with the translations, musicians all. Some of them will be visiting Explore the North to  share the stage with ZEA and perform the music in various languages. ZEA have invited Song Lua Trio (Vietnamese), Quinie (Scots), DINA (Frisian) and Guillaume Pool (Sranantongo) to join in this fabulous festival opening act.


Both the Witst noch dat d'r neat wie album and tour are a co-production between ZEA and Explore the North, De Popfabryk and Subroutine Records. The Emmaplein Foundation and P.W. Janssen's Friesche Stichting are also supporting this initiative.






The act is played in two parts:

ZEA has invited multiple artists for his single release. They give a solo show, but also act up together:

18:30 Song Lua trio
19:30 ZEA



About the artists:

ZEA is a Dutch band, a solo project from Arnold de Boer. ZEA exists more than 20 years and give shows around the whole world, but mostly in Frisian. The minimalist, intimate - mostly acoustic - makes it touching for the public. Arnold de Boer is also a singer and a guitaris for the Dutch band The Ex

Song Lua trio combines traditional Vietnamese music with older European music with jazz, classical music and even funk.

Khanh Nguyen is a singer, musician and music teacher, living in Berlin. She studied jazz, rock, pop and also singing and piano at the Carl. Because of her Vietnamese roots, she mixes it with traditional music and influences from the western music genres. In the Song Lua Trio she is a singer and a percussionist.

Diethard Krause studied cello and viola da gamba in Dresden and Rostock. He is a cellist at Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra since 2014. Earlier on, he played at the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chemnitz Opera.

Tri Nguyen is born in the south of Vietnam and lives in Paris now. He started playing piano when he was 5 years old. On the age of 7, he started studying the traditional music instrument the dan-tranh from one of the latest dan-tranh teachers. After he finished the conservatory in Saigon, he continued his study at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.

Guillaume Christiaan Pool is a poet, story teller and a perfmance artist from Suriname, living in Haren. As a poet, he acts up in the Netherlands, but also in Suriname, for example the Bukutori foundation