Music & Radio
Marieke McKenna hosted her own weekly show on Dutch national radio, presents and hosts at North Sea Jazz Festival, and has spent ten years running her record label, Mink Records. Her work in music is driven by a fascination with music as a universal language that is, at the same time, a deeply local cultural expression.
Marieke’s sonic practice moves between DJ performance, sound art, dramaturgy, archival collage, field recording, radio and immersive environmental composition. As a sound artist she creates site-responsive sonic environments: sound in her work is always spatial, composed for the room, landscape or architecture in which it will be heard.
She is known for her creative collages of forgotten gems from global music history, rare field recordings, lecture fragments and unreleased new music by upcoming artists. From sensual deep bass and danceable percussion to folk songs from all over the world and unusual psychedelic production layers, her sets take the audience on a journey across an unusually wide range of genres.
Her work could be heard every week on Round Midnight on the Dutch national radio station NPO Soul & Jazz, and in Roots & Threads, the ethnomusicological music-history podcast she researched, wrote and recorded for the public broadcaster NTR.
On airpublic broadcasting
- 2024–2026Round MidnightNPO Soul & Jazz (NTR) · Thursday nights
My own weekly national radio show, every Thursday night until the station closed in 2026. More than a hundred broadcasts of carefully constructed sonic journeys, weaving together forgotten musical histories, global traditions, rare recordings, field recordings, emerging artists, philosophy and poetry. Listen back on NPO Luister (the archive also holds the other nights’ presenters), or hear many of the tracks I played on Spotify. - 2024–2025Dream SoundsNPO Soul & Jazz
My weekly podcast for escaping the stress of the day: a musical journey through cultures and times, landscapes and weather, other dimensions and dream worlds, with spiritual jazz, new age, soul, (neo)classical and ambient music. Nineteen episodes over two seasons. Listen on NPO Luister. - 2022–Roots & ThreadsNTR / NPO
An ethnomusicological podcast series that extends the approach of the radio show into long-form narrative storytelling through music history, cultural memory, migration, politics and sound. Listen on NPO Luister or Spotify. - 2025North Sea Jazz on televisionNPO 2 Extra & NPO Start
Curator and presenter of the festival’s three-day live broadcast, featured by NPO Cultuur. - 2021“Seasick”Hive Mind Records
A spoken-word poem on King Champion Sounds’ album Between Two Worlds, alongside Gerry Love, Mia Doi Todd and Sally Timms.
Stages & decksperformed, spoken and curated at
Le Guess Who?· TivoliVredenburg· Movies That Matter· Rewire· The Barbican, London· Korzo· North Sea Jazz· NTS Radio· Paard· Lowlands· NPO Radio 2· Super Sonic Jazz· Best Kept Secret· Milan Fashion Week· Radius CCA· Crossing Border· Museum Beelden aan Zee· Lago Lago· ADE· Kunstmuseum Den Haag· De Groene Amsterdammer· Paradiso· Museumnacht· Operator Radio· and many others
Playlistson Spotify
Round Midnight: tracks from the show
Hundreds of the tracks I played on Round Midnight, my weekly radio show on NPO Soul & Jazz: 66 hours of music, saved by more than 500 listeners.
From the notebookhandwritten tracklists
For every broadcast I wrote the tracklist out by hand. A few pages from the notebook.
with an interview with Matthew Halsall, live at Transition Festival
with special guest Nike Ayinla of Orisun Studio
From my cabinet of curiosities
A turning sphere of images I collect: sky discs, star charts, spirals, shells and suns.