A place to read about “all things cultural” that cross my path and a place for you to share your thoughts. Hopefully the blog will capture a slice of my life and a slice of yours.
December's here again and so is December Dance, an annual festival of contemporary dance in Bruges. This year's theme is 'Nordic Waves', and as the name suggests the focus is on dancers and choreographers from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.
Westward Ho! choreography: Tero Saarinen
photo: Sakari Viika
The festival opened on Thursday evening with a triple bill from the Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen. While each of the three pieces was very different in character, it was striking how each of them used light in an innovative way to complement the dance and music: Westward ho! had a backdrop of the aurora borealis (Northern lights), the visual focus in Scheme of Things was a large rectangular board of lights that at times resembled disco lights and at others the light of fire and other elemental forces, while in Vox Balaenae a prism suspended from the ceiling played light games with the dance floor and the soloist's costume.
VOX BALAENAE
choreography:
Tero Saarinen
photo: Sami Kulju
Can't wait until Tuesday's performance which promises to be a showstopper with choreography by the Helsinki Dance Company's Kenneth Kvarnström, combining contemporary dance with live classical music and costumes from leading Swedish and Finnish fashion designers.
Check out the full programme here. The festival runs until December 16.
The Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin orchestra last night gave a performance of baroque music like I've never seen before. On the programme were 'The Elements' by French composer Jean-Fery Rebel and 'The Four Seasons' by Antonio Vivaldi, both pieces composed in the early 18th century and both brought to life not only by the musicians but also by a dancer.
The performance, which was part of the annual KlaraFestival in Belgium, was full of life, energy and movement. At times I was absorbed in the music, at others mesmerized by the choreography. Sometimes I found myself chuckling at the cheeky gestures, at other times quite simply wowed by the interaction of music and dance.
During Rebel's work, the choreographer and dancer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola played with fire and danced in water as he interpreted the music of 'The Elements'. During Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons', he wooed the solo violinist through the first signs of spring, the heat of summer, autumnal leaves and winter snowflakes. It really was a truly original and uplifting performance.
Another great concert earlier in the festival, whose theme this year is 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door', was 'Kosmos'. Have a read of my review in the Wall Street Journal.
The KlaraFestival runs until September 14, so there's still time to catch a concert, be it in Brussels, Antwerp or Bruges.
My destination: a former coal-mining complex in Genk (Limburg province, Belgium). My reason: Manifesta, the roving European Biennial of Contemporary Art, which opened at the site this weekend and runs until 30 September.
I say contemporary art, but in fact there was as much history and heritage on show as there were new creations. From coal sacks hanging from the ceiling (as devised by Marcel Duchamp for the 1938 International Surrealism Exposition in Paris) to bookshelves filled with miners' employment booklets, from sculptures made of coal to a colourful, cascading installation of fabric by Chinese artist Ni Haifeng, the exhibition takes the visitor through centuries of industrialisation to the present day.
Inspired by the location's coal-mining heritage, the curators sought to underline the interaction between contemporary art, historic art and heritage. The result is a well-integrated exhibition with a strong thematic focus and plenty of resonances between archive documents, historical material and contemporary installations. The legacy of Manifesta 9, according to the organizers, will be an emphasis of how deeply embedded culture is in our society.
This year's biennial, unlike its predecessors, is taking place in one location: the beautifully renovated Waterschei mine. Officially known as the Andre Dumont mine after the man who discovered coal in Limburg, the site was completed in 1924, remaining a working mine for several decades before closing its doors in 1987.
Villa Empain, on an embassy-lined avenue in Brussels, is a beautiful Art Deco residence that could have been lost forever had the Boghossian Foundation not stepped in and restored it to its former splendour. To read the rest of my article about Villa Empain, published in Flanders Today, click here. For some beautiful photos to whet your appetite, look no further than below.
As Harry Christophers' vocal ensemble The Sixteen sang of the glory of man and of trumpets sounding, a sense of sheer joy rose up through my body. The voices rang out and filled the Concertgebouw Brugge concert hall in what was a truly wondrous experience.
The main work on last night's programme was Brahms' 'Ein deutsches Requiem', an unusual work perhaps for a group best known for its Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. But as Christophers has said, "Since Brahms had been so influenced by the Protestant Church music of the great German master of the early Baroque, Heinrich Schuetz, the Requiem seems to be perfect material for The Sixteen."
And in case you're wondering how a small vocal ensemble pulled off a masterpiece that usually demands a large choir and full orchestra, Brahms also wrote a scaled-down version with an arrangement for piano duet: it is this version that The Sixteen performed with pianists Christopher Glynn and John Reid.
One advantage of the version with piano duet is a more intense focus on the text, with the voices at no point being drowned out by an orchestra. The tone and texture of The Sixteen's voices underscored the meaning of the words and I had the sense that even if you hadn't understood the German text, or had a translation to hand, much of the meaning would have been understood simply through the musical interpretation.
The importance of singers understanding the text of a vocal score was recently highlighted by another conductor, Collegium Vocale Gent's Philippe Herreweghe. As part of a Herreweghe celebration this month, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels showed the documentary film "Collegium Vocale, 40 years of passion" as a prelude to a performance by the choir of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. In the documentary, several Collegium Vocale singers emphasised how, for Herreweghe, the text was of primary importance. You had to use your head as well as your heart when singing with him, they said. Those words would seem to be equally applicable to Christophers and The Sixteen.
“The hottest artist on the classical music planet” is how the New York Times described Chinese pianist Lang Lang a few years ago; this week Brussels music-lovers got to find out why the 29 year-old is still seducing audiences.
At a concert at the Bozar on Tuesday evening, Lang Lang worked his musical magic as he opened with Liszt’s piano concerto no. 1 and followed it with Chopin’s ‘Grande Polonaise’. He wooed the piano, coaxing it to produce the textures and tones that he desired, and the piano seemed so smitten by this attentive pianist that it submitted to his every wish. Sometimes his fingers stroked the keys tenderly, at others he struck them ferociously as he explored the score’s possibilities and pushed at the musical boundaries.
The excitement he generated through his playing was enhanced by his gestures. As he played a slow, reflective passage he threw a cheeky, lingering look at the audience as if to say, ‘Did you enjoy that? Did you hear how I beautifully I interpreted the passage? You did? Yes, I thought so’. And as he launched himself into a fast section with such exuberance and panache, you couldn’t help but be swept along with his almost child-like enthusiasm.
He’s a showman, there’s no two ways about it. But it’s on the right side of showmanship. Lang Lang avoids the pitfall of his performance being just a spectacle, all gesture; there’s plenty of substance too. The musical accomplishment is admirable, the execution a breath of fresh air. His cheeky smiles, raised eyebrows and glances at the audience were not gratuitous; they helped the listener follow the musical line, providing pointers to Lang Lang’s musical interpretation.
When Lang Lang is on the bill, the attention is always going to focus on him. And yet Tuesday’s concert also featured a world-class orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, which played as brilliantly as usual, and the British conductor, Daniel Harding, who in his mid-30s has already got a cv that many a conductor can only dream of.
It was always going to be tough to follow a first half featuring Lang Lang and orchestra by a second half with just the orchestra, but they pulled it off with a stirring performance of Beethoven’s symphony no. 3, better known as ‘Eroica’.
Whereas Harding had spent most of the first half of the concert hidden from my view by the piano lid, he completely captivated me in the second half as he directed the orchestra with his whole body, at times almost dancing as he followed the ebbs and flows of the score. By the end of the first movement, I wondered if he’d have the physical energy to continue for the rest of the symphony. Not since seeing Simon Rattle on the same stage have I been so mesmerised by a conductor; then again, in his late teens Harding was Rattle’s assistant at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Lang Lang and Harding, who have worked together on several occasions and are said to be good friends, both came across as musical personalities who had something to say about the music they were performing, who loved the music they were playing, and wanted to share that joy with the audience. The result was a truly uplifting musical experience.
It’s back to school, back to work and back to a packed diary of cultural events. Just as suddenly as the concert halls and theatres of Brussels go very quiet in August (as most of the city disappears on holiday), come September there’s more to choose from than you could possibly have time for.
For classical music fans in Brussels, the first two weeks of September are dominated by the KlaraFestival, which takes its name from the classical music radio station Klara. This year the festival’s theme is ‘Imagine Paradise’ and, in the organisers’ words, moves “between hope and the imagination, between utopia and reality, between the beautiful and the horrific.”
As part of the festival, earlier this week I heard a mesmerising recital by cellist Steven Isserlis, with Denes Varjon on piano. Entitled Russian Utopia, the programme included Shostakovich’s Sonata for cello and piano in D minor and Scriabin’s Sonata for solo piano No. 5. The performances were exciting and energetic, be it Varjon playing the Scriabin with such panache that he literally jumped from the keyboard as he played the last chord or Isserlis emphasising the cheeky, almost sarcastic, moments of the Shostakovich with a wry smile of his own towards the audience. The engagement with the audience was maintained to the end, with final bows not only being taken by both players, but Isserlis also amusingly allowing his cello to take its own little bow.
This coming Sunday, the Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir conducted by Sir Neville Mariner will be performing Britten’s War Requiem. The work, composed in 1962 to commemorate the bombing of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe 20 years earlier, has a score and text that “transcend historical circumstance and offer one of the most universal and poignant anti-war manifestos in the history of music,” according to the programme. Needless to say, this Sunday is the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the U.S.
Between now and the end of the festival on September 16, there’s at least one concert every day. Highlights range from the Akademie fuer alte Musik Berlin to Roger Norrington conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. If you want something a little bit different though, then take a look at the final night’s line-up when a Brussels nightclub (Club Mirano) will open its doors to music from Bach to Glass played by DJs. The festival said it wanted to take "an adventurous approach" to classical music; no one could accuse it of failing to achieve that.
