Radio Lomax & Zonzo Compagnie

Where Is Home? 

Coming home in music

A man steps onto the stage, cello in hand. He looks out into the concert hall, spreads his arms and says, ‘Welcome. Tonight, you are not listeners, but participants. Our meeting is an exchange.’ Then he begins to sing and play, and everything becomes clear. He absorbs the audience’s energy like a human antenna and returns it tenfold. The concert hall shifts into an intimate living room. Everyone who witnessed it walks away transformed. 

This is essentially how a concert by Abel Selaocoe unfolds. Together with this charismatic cellist, singer and composer, we warmly welcome you to the 21st Klarafestival. As a festival artist, Selaocoe will play three concerts spanning the full spectrum of his musical world. From traditional music from his native South Africa to baroque, jazz, contemporary classical and improvisation: he melds all these influences into a unique body of work, centred on identity and cultural exchange.

The theme of this year's festival is taken from the debut album of Selaocoe’s own Bantu Ensemble: Where Is Home? It is an open question with endless answers – especially in the super-diverse city of Brussels, home to 180 nationalities and 100 languages. Our capital is a crossroads, a refuge, a temporary or permanent home for countless individuals, each carrying their own story. Every day, we feel privileged that our festival can take root in such fertile soil.

Klarafestival 2026 is an ode to the city we call home. During Muziekberg/Mont des Musiques, Brussels musicians will take over the Kunstberg (Mont des Arts) for a day, from the Musical Instruments Museum to Bozar, from the Ravenstein Gallery to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts. And both Radio Lomax and the choir Les Invisibles (La Voix des Femmes Sans Papiers) will perform Brussels songs with diverse roots. 

Our mission is to show as wide an audience as possible that classical music is alive and kicking. Even the most familiar works take on fresh life in the hands of the adventurous musicians we surround ourselves with. Prepare to be captivated by Bach's St John Passion as conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev. Marvel at Beethoven and Strauss with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. Rediscover Chopin and Scriabin in a performance by Alexandre Kantorow. Or encounter keyboard phenomenon Anthony Romaniuk: like Abel Selaocoe, he intertwines his own compositions with the established repertoire, from Bach to Björk.  

This festival programme features many more musical kindred spirits. Annelies Van Parys completed the 8th symphony of her former teacher Luc Brewaeys. Pianists Kris Defoort and Stephane Ginsburgh pay tribute to their friend Philippe Boesmans, who would have turned 90 in 2026. Abel Selaocoe, in turn, improvises with like-minded souls, both old and new, and performs a brand-new cello concerto by American composer Jessie Montgomery. 

None of this would be possible without the support of our partners in Brussels and beyond. Bozar, Flagey, De Munt, Ancienne Belgique, Brussels Philharmonic, Belgian National Orchestra, Passa Porta, BNA-BBOT and the Luc Brewaeys Foundation all contribute to Klarafestival’s unique DNA. Our indispensable private partners include KPMG Belgium, Proximus, Brugse Zot, Gimv/WorxInvest and Interparking. We are grateful for the support of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission, the Brussels-Capital Region and the National Lottery. Our collaboration with VRT and Klara, meanwhile, is the secret to our success as a broadcasting festival. Above all, we thank our enthusiastic audience who follow us both in the concert hall and at home on the radio and VRT MAX. 

For Abel Selaocoe, ‘home’ is much more than a building or a place. 'It can be a spiritual space. It can be people. (...) It can be something you find along your travels.’ For seven years, Klarafestival has been ‘home’ for festival director Joost Fonteyne. His sense of adventure and social connection is more evident than ever in this festival programme. In April 2026, he will continue his journey and pass the torch to Jan Van den Borre. Many thanks, Joost, for the wonderful years! 

A musical journey around the world

Just under a century ago, American folklorist Alan Lomax set out to travel the world collecting songs. Armed with a recording device and a healthy dose of curiosity, he asked ordinary people from a wide variety of communities to sing for him. In this way, he collected countless songs that have been passed down from generation to generation: lullabies and work songs, dance and marching songs, songs for sowing and harvesting, for celebrating and mourning. The astonishing archive he built up with these field recordings has inspired countless artists, from Bob Dylan to Moby.

For Songs with Roots, Radio Lomax follows in Alan Lomax's footsteps. The band brings songs to life that could have come straight from Lomax's archive, but which you could just as easily hear right around the corner. Because while the American folklorist and music archaeologist still had to travel to collect songs, migration flows have now brought them to all kinds of places. Countless ‘songs with roots’ can be found in multicultural cities such as Brussels.

For today's performance, sound artist Giulia Vismara gathered songs from Brussels social organisations such as Klein Kasteeltje and Samusocial. Composer Jan Van Outryve then arranged them for the five-piece band Radio Lomax. Three singers and two instrumentalists will premiere his brand-new arrangements, along with other songs from their repertoire. In between, they talk. About soothing angels and raging rivers, about racing heart rates and maddening infatuation, and about Brussels. Because you can hear the capital everywhere during Songs with Roots: not only in the music, but also in the soundscapes that transform the hall into a warm sound bath between songs. Shouting market vendors, ringing bells, chirping parakeets, clanging trams and snippets of songs sung by Brussels residents from here and elsewhere draw you into the capital and open your mind to a musical journey around the world.

We start in southern Italy with Allí uno, a song in typical Tammurriata style. The rhythms, originally played on tammorras, large tambourines, are at least as rousing as the spicy lyrics in the dialect of the region around Naples. The rhythm is also decisive in the Congolese Olélé. Fishermen sang it while rowing to warn of the dangers of the water. The pulse not only indicates the strokes of the oars in the water, but is also excellent for rocking a child to sleep.

Later in the performance, there are more songs for bedtime, but first we sing about love in all its forms: from the madness of falling in love in the Malaysian Rasa Sayang to finding a suitable partner in the traditional Portuguese song Rama to Song to a Bride, a song from Bench Sheko, in south-western Ethiopia. In the original, two men repeat and comment on each other's good wishes to a bride, but in Radio Lomax's version, a third voice joins in. A strong groove kicks off the wedding party.

We hear even more celebration in Ciuleandra. In this Romanian folk dance, singers encourage the dancers with well-aimed, rhythmic exclamations to give more and more of themselves. But music does not have to be rousing to be enchanting. The Georgian lullaby Iavnana proves this. Traditionally, it was sung to cure children with measles, smallpox or scarlet fever. The lyrics are dedicated to masters or angels – spiritual beings who were believed to visit sick children – and who therefore had to be appeased.

Illness and death, love and friendship, work and play, man and nature... All over the world, songs express everything that brings people joy and sorrow. That is also the strength of Alan Lomax's rich archive: all human experiences are represented in it. Am I Born To Die is one of the songs from the recordings he made. This traditional song from the Appalachians reflects on death. Radio Lomax performs it with fragments of Swahili and Tunisian in a comforting close harmony version. The finale is another lullaby: the Arabic Yalla Tnam. About how to calm and satisfy your child. With a song, for example.

Esther De Soomer

Jan Van Outryve

Lutenist and composer Jan Van Outryve moves freely between musical theatre, literature and historical repertoire. As a composer, he links his expertise in early music to a creativity and curiosity inspired by music from an even more distant past. Whether drawing on Henry Purcell or the folk songs preserved in the archive of Alan Lomax, different forms of early music become living material in his hands as he seeks to let them speak anew in the present. Van Outryve has been working closely for many years with, among others, Muziektheater Transparant and Zonzo Compagnie, where he focuses primarily on productions for young audiences.

Giulia Vismara

Giulia Vismara is a composer and researcher who lives and works in Belgium and Italy. Her work consists of electroacoustic music, sound installations and music for theatre, performance and video. She is particularly interested in creating textures in which concrete and synthetic sounds intertwine. In her research and artistic work, she also focuses on the role of space, as in her recent work on the spatialisation of sound and 3D audio technologies. Vismara's work has been performed in Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Greece, the United States and Canada.

Zonzo Compagnie

Founded in 2001 by Wouter van Looy, Zonzo Compagnie plays an influential role internationally in music and sound art projects for young audiences. For example, Zonzo organises the BIG BANG Festival, an adventurous music festival that now has a permanent place in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Brazil and Canada. In addition, Zonzo Compagnie creates sound installations in cultural centres – so-called “musical labyrinths” – and multimedia performances in which young and not-so-young audiences are introduced to composers such as John Cage, Miles Davis, Johann Sebastian Bach, Luciano Berio, Thelonious Monk and Maurice Ravel.

• Family show for children aged 6 and above

• Estimated end of the concert at 16:00

• Before or after the concert, come and listen to the songs that sound artist Giulia Vismara collected in Brussels (14:00-15:00 & 16:00-16:30 at the Fumoir)

• Disclaimer: this performance includes the sound of fireworks as part of a festive party scene on stage. These sound effects include hisses and bangs.