For her secondary education, she attended Gymnasium Herkenrath, North Rhine-Westphalia, from 1975 until 1979, and Het Nieuwe Lyceum, Bilthoven, Netherlands, from which she graduated in 1983.
During her science studies she sang leading roles in several opera productions at Muziekschool Enschede, and co-composed and performed songs with her new wave band Boolean.
From 1991 to 1992 she studied classical voice with Eugenie Ditewig at Utrechts Conservatorium, from 1992 to 1994 with Gerda van Zelm at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
In 2002 Hirs took part in the Computer music and composition course at IRCAM, taught by Mikhail Malt (OpenMusic), Benjamin Thigpen (Max/msp), Jean Lochard (Diphone), and Marco Stroppa (OMChroma).
She has also taught Creative Writing courses and workshops at Kunstwelten, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and Vormstudies, Academy of Architecture, Amsterdam School of the Arts.
A prolific composer, Rozalie Hirs has collaborated with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Klangforum Wien, Asko/Schönberg, Quatuor Bozzini, Holland Festival, November Music, among others.
The present music notational system is based on twelve-tone equal temperament, corresponding to semitones, meaning that not all frequencies and pitches may be captured.
Expanding the present system to a 24-tone or even 48-tone tempered tuning, corresponding to a resolution of a quarter tone and an eighthtone respectively, will lead to a larger choice of pitches, yet still entails approximation of frequencies into a notational grid (quantification).
The electronic sounds in Hirs's compositions are synthesized using the unapproximated frequencies and provide a means of reference for the musician during rehearsal and performance.
On this CD, Hirs investigates polyglot language and the simultaneity of streams of meaning in three electroacoustic works using original texts in English.
On 10 May 1991 Rozalie Hirs presented her poetry for the first time to the public at the student festival for culture De Pythische Spelen, Enschede.
The poet brings her archetypical personalities to life within the critical and formative circumstances, recalling the myth and presenting a new version of the tale.
[6] The showpiece of the collection then is the ten-page long ‘[In LA]’, which can be read as a meditation on music and memory, and in which the words find themselves interspersed with a large amount of white space.
It is a sober tribute to Andriessen's beautiful, heavy words, and the chosen form lends this thinking-out-loud a buzzing hesitance that every speaker experiences when trying to find language for grand things.
[7] With her following books Geluksbrenger (Lucky Charm, 2008), gestamelde werken (work in stuttering, 2012), verdere bijzonderheden (further particulars, 2017), oneindige zin (infinite sense, 2021), ecologica (2023), and dagtekening van liefdesvormen (2024), Hirs playfully develops her mature writing style, based on simultaneous multiplicities of meaning, possibilities of reading.
In 2017 the Berlin-based Kookbooks published her multilingual compendium gestammelte werke, containing original poems in Dutch, German, English and Spanish by the poet, and translations into more than ten languages by Daniela Seel, Henri Deluy, Diego Puls, Kim Andringa, Jelica Novakovic, Donald Gardner, Daniel Cunin, among others.
In 2014 her poetry collection in Serbian translation život mogućnosti appeared with Biblioteka Prevodi in Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Hirs' work was selected for De 100 beste gedichten van 2008, and 2012, and appeared in poetry collections, and literary magazines in Belgium, Germany, France, Mexico, and the Netherlands.
[16] Departing from this moment of receptivity, Hirs embarks on a surprising and overwhelming exploration of language, time, space, humanity, nature, perception, memory.
[19] That way the words of Hirs, who is also active as a composer, are like music: the chords flow into one another rhythmically, quite oblivious of the boundaries of a sentence.