How I started making music as “Summer Sun Dance”
Nice to meet you here! I am Doenja Clerkx from The Netherlands, the producer of “Summer Sun Dance” and “The Entranced”.
When I was a kid I always wanted to become an artist, but not in music, in painting! I followed drawing lessons and chose it as one of my courses in pre-university education. In the last year, I decided to study economics, after painting three pictures that said everything I wanted to say at that time, and getting good grades at school. I was then already starting to grow a passion for trance an dance music after I started listening to the Dance top 40 radio show on Dutch radio.
During college I was looking for new ways to use my creative drive and one day I bought Music maker, because I was starting to become a real trance freak. I really loved making music, but got bored of working with somebody else’s ideas. I wanted to create it myself!
Two months later, my first idea just popped up: the lead for “Live your dream”. Bit by bit more pieces came up, including a vocal. Since it kept me awake almost every night, I decided to buy a synthesizer and a better PC. I made the first version with music maker. It was a mess, but I could finally get some decent sleep!
In the meantime, I came up with lots of other ideas, so I decided to do things right and get better software (Cubase) and created a new version of “Live your dream”. In 2010 I released my first EP under my artist name The Entranced: Live Your Dream/ Total Confusion/Losing You. The vocals for this release were performed by me and later on got sampled on releases by Xian [Pulsar Recordings], Rob Marro [Relentless Digital] and Re-Vamp [Derailed Traxx]. I continued producing and releasing more tracks. Sometimes with long breaks in between, due to long workdays and a very severe burnout in 2020.
Trance isn’t the only genre I love though, I also love dance-pop and house-pop, as long as it has good vocals, a catchy melody and the synthesizers aren’t too obnoxious. The idea of making dance-pop / house remixes of my The Entranced songs was sitting in my head for a long time. Bit by bit I got a better view on what kind of house / dance music I wanted to make under a second artist name. It had to be happy (without being to exhausting or obnoxious), with vocals, a pop structure with melodic synth leads and an accessible music style. Dance music that makes the listener feel good!
In 2026 I finally started working on two dance-pop / vocal house productions: Not Today and a remix of my The Entranced song Live Your Dream. These productions were inspired by artists like Avicii, Nick Schilder and Kygo. And I also came up with an artist name that expressed that easy going feel-good dance music style: Summer Sun Dance. In September 2026 I released the first single called Not Today under my artist name Summer Sun Dance. I hope this music gives you an upbeat summer feeling!