Tirtsa de Vries - songs by Chiel Meijering, recorded in 1980

In 1978 I co-wrote an opera called Narcissus with 4 other composers: Erik Visser, Wim van Binsbergen, Rob van der Vlugt and conductor Wim Witteman. We wrote it for the Ricciotti pop orchestra. We toured through the former Yugoslavia, where there was a branch of Jeugd & Muziek that co-produced — and Ricciotti was part of that. A record company got interested and Robert Jan Stips was lined up to produce the LP. But the label didn’t hear a hit in the opera yet. So Wim Witteman asked me to write a few more songs. I did, but even then the record company still didn’t hear a hit. In the end, they pulled the plug and the whole project was canceled. 48 years later, I’ve decided to put the songs that Tirtsa de Vries and I sometimes sing on YouTube. They’re just beautiful songs, and I’m done waiting for record companies.