Equinox weekend
welcome the light
As the days begin to lengthen again, we are steadily looking forward to spring. On the occasion of the spring equinox, a moment of particular spiritual significance to many cultures, Klarafestival and Bozar organise a spiritual weekend focusing on stillness and introspection, between 17 and 19 March.
brumel meets breugel
On Friday 17 March, Graindelavoix will perform the Belgian premiere of Rolling Stone. For this project, the ensemble recreates the twelve-voice Earthquake Mass of Antoine Brumel with images from Luigi Di Gianni’s neorealist 1967 documentary Il culto delle pietre.
thirty-strong Baroque orchestra
The voices of Pluto Ensemble, Hathor Consort’s strings and the brass instruments of Oltremontano combine to form one great Baroque orchestra. Under the title L.E.D., they perform a colourful programme of music by Schütz and Monteverdi, but also by worthy unknowns such as Guami and Stadlmayr. A first will be the never previously performed Requiem for ten voices and six bass viola da gambas by the 17th century composer Christoph Strauss.
late night concert
Guitarist and composer Ruben Machtelinckx and the Norwegian trumpetist Arve Henriksen are a dream jazz duo. In A Short Story, Henriksen’s whispering trumpet engages in a soft dialogue with Machtelinckx’s atmospheric guitar and compositions. Ideal late-evening music.
Persian new year celebration
Klarafestival marks the Persian new year celebration “Nowruz” with artists who are breathing new life into their musical tradition. Among others: Homayoun Sakhi, “the most innovative rubab player of his generation”, Afghan tabla player Siar Hashimi and singer Ulzhan Baibussinova, one of the few female interpreters of the Kazakh oral poetry.
darkness and light
We close the Equinox weekend with the European premiere of Electric Fields, an immersive audiovisual experience in which soprano Barbara Hannigan and the legendary Labèque sisters traverse nine centuries of music, from Hildegard von Bingen’s mystical medieval sounds to the music of Bryce Dessner and David Chalmin’s live electronics, combined with interactive images from Netia Jones.
