Classical music in Flanders: A bird’s-eye view

The first thing you notice from this perspective is: Music is everywhere. It is remarkable how, over the years, the knowledge and practice of music has become as important in Flemish society as listening to it. A vibrant musical life allows a broad and diverse professional sector to flourish. How this came about is a wide-ranging question. It may well have something to do with geography. Flanders is flat and centrally located, with a relatively mild climate. People live close together, enjoy the good life and put up with the occasional drizzle, but there is enough sunshine to gather outdoors: excellent conditions for a thriving social life.

How well connected the region is to its neighbours and beyond can also be seen from the air. Flanders has always been a crossroads, which has brought a variety of influences and a kind of genetic wanderlust that is still reflected in the music that is written, played and enjoyed here today. Especially in the late Middle Ages, Flemish polyphonists (Dufay, Josquin, Obrecht, Willaert,…) went to work at the powerful courts of what is now Europe, creating a framework for artistic and cultural exchange.

(Re)discovered composers

Later, from the Baroque to the classical and Romantic periods and even until the Second World War, the region was known more for its performing musicians than its composers, and for its construction and development of instruments, with famous builders of harpsichords and organs and an impressive carillon culture. This does not mean, however, that no music was composed, and recently efforts have been made to rediscover baroque, classical and romantic music from this region.

For example, the lively and energetic music of Hébert Leemans, who died in Paris in 1771 at the very young age of 30, was recently rediscovered by Vlad Weverbergh and his Terra Nova Collective, on two CDs of symphonies and chamber music. Terra Nova Collective take as a part of their mission the rediscovery of Belgian composers, and have also released CDs focussing on galant composer Henri-Joseph de Croes, while music by his father, the latebaroque composer Henri-Jaques de Croes has been rediscovered by early violinist Ann Cnop and her ensemble Le Pavillon de Musique.

The Dutch language songs of Josquin Baston were recently recorded by Ratas del Viejo Mundo. Floris De Ryckers creative and folkloristic approach to this renaissance music, combined with the naturalistic voices of his ensemble, makes for a lively and emotional experience live, as well as on record.

Not only ensembles, but also very strong music study centres and museums help bring this repertoire back to life. Organisations such as Museum Vleeshuis, Studiecentrum voor Vlaamse Muziek (Study centre for Flemish music), Alamire Foundation and MATRIX New Music work hard at making the music available to be studied and enjoyed by doing (artistic) research, creating new editions and commissioning recordings. This way, for example, the music of Leonora Duarte has found a new life because of the collaboration between Museum Vleeshuis and Transports Publics. On the CD The Duarte Circle the complete surviving work of this 17th century Antwerp composer can be found. Her seven fantasies for a consort of viols are the first music for viols by a female composer as of yet discovered.

In Antwerp too, the Studiecentrum voor Vlaamse Muziek focuses on music by 19th and 20th century Flemish composers, among which sounding names like Peter Benoit and Lodewijk Mortelmans – nationalistic composers whose music was well loved within Flanders but remained unrecognised outside the region – while also paying attention to talented composers that weren’t recognised in their time, like Irène Fuerison.

The Alamire Foundation takes a more technological approach to research, digitisation and dissemination of music in the Low Countries. Their broad approach has been essential in making the Leuven Chansonnier accessible to researchers and the public, but their digitisation efforts go far beyond this and can be found and consulted in IDEM (the Integrated Database for Early Music). They also organise the annual Voices of Passion festival in their scenic premises at the House of Polyphony on the outskirts of Leuven, and host video recordings on alamire.tv, both of which bring polyphony to a wider audience.

The story of making music accessible continues in Leuven with MATRIX New Music, the Flemish Centre for New Music. They deal with contemporary music and more recent musical heritage, focusing on music since 1950. They host a publicly accessible library of scores, sound recordings and research material, but they also disseminate research and music by 20th century composers such as Berio, Saariaho, Ligeti, Goeyvaerts and Brewaeys through (online) expositions and publications. As a part of the KU Leuven, they also focus on music education projects, bringing contemporary music, experimental music and sound art to audiences of all ages.

Past performance…

From the 1950s onwards, Flanders experienced a period of internationally acclaimed compositional activity. The music was rarely extravagant, with its almost scientific, progressive ethic, but extravagance was found in large and small productions of opera, music theatre and the performing arts. At the same time, the movement known as ‘early music’ arose, promoting authentic performance practice — now more modestly known as Historically Informed Practice (HIP). Most of the Flemish pioneers from this period are still active as performing and recording artists, researchers or supporters of other artistic practices. These include Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale; Sigiswald, Wieland and Barthold Kuijken’s La Petite Bande, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary; Jos van Immerseel’s Anima Eterna, which is now exploring classical and romantic music with HIP; Paul van Nevel’s Huelgas Ensemble; and Il Gardelino by Marcel Ponseele and Jan De Winne, the latter of whom also runs Passacaille Records, which specialises in early music releases.

Although the HIP movement itself can be considered heritage, there is still a great deal of interest in its practices and methods. One of the most vibrant and exciting ensembles focusing on Baroque music is without doubt Musica Gloria. This young international collective, led by oboist Nele Vertommen and flautist/keyboardist Beniamino Paganini, brings together skilled musicians for quality performances of both well-known and lesser-known Baroque repertoire.

Les Abbagliati delve deeper into the repertoire of forgotten composers and have recently started a collaboration with bagpiper Marieke van Ransbeeck, who loves nothing more than to bring the musette de cour and other bagpipes to new audiences and different creative heights. She is currently experimenting with contemporary music, and she’s not the only one. Frederike Van Lindt‘s young recorder quartet Delle Donne Consort combines historically informed performances with live electronics and commissions from contemporary composers, such as her new programme with Vigdis Elst and Maarten Buyl. Likewise, Sofie Van den Eynde’s Imago Mundi combines her own arrangements of early music with new commissions from composers such as Heleen van Haegenborgh. She recently collaborated with Iraqi oud virtuoso Saad Mahmood Jawad on the programme and CD Whirling Waters.

A major influence on the more experimental approach is the flamboyant Graindelavoix, directed by the vocalist, musicologist and anthropologist Björn Schmelzer. The fact that Schmelzer’s interests are anthropological and phenomenological as well as musicological means that Graindelavoix regularly engages with other traditions and styles, seeking through research to recreate the spirit of the music rather than reproduce it with historical accuracy. Their recent recording of Anthony Brumel‘s Earthquake Mass, for example, includes soundscapes of electronics and early wind instruments, including the serpent played by improvisation and jazz musician Berlinde De Man.

Gambist Thomas Baeté is also a regular musical partner of Graindelavoix. Since 2010, he has led his own international ensemble, ClubMediéval, but he has also composed a wonderfully intimate solo programme, On Solitude, and is part of Osuna Trio together with singer and multi-instrumentalist Raphael De Cock and saz player Emre Gultekin. This ensemble plays early and traditional music that Marco Polo might have heard as he travelled the Silk Road, combining it with live sand art in programmes for both adult and young audiences.

One of the most important proponents of the rediscovery of different early music and the exchange between early music and other music cultures in Belgium, is Romina Lischka and her Hathor Consort. Lischka is a gambist with a large interest in Indian dhrupad singing and traditional Arabian music. While Hathor Consort also performs more traditional repertoires, it is within these intercultural projects that she truly shines. It is here once again that our eye is drawn to the crossroads we mentioned in the beginning of this text..

… future results

These crossroads are also emblematic of contemporary music. The genre is always on the lookout for something new and never succeeds at staying within its boundaries, luckily so! A wealth of legendary genre and discipline crossovers have existed within our sector. After Max!malist and X-Legged sally in the 80s, Peter Vermeersch founded the Flat Earth Society, the wonderfully ‘meta’ brass band that cannot absolutely be categorised as classical music, but rather because it is difficult to fit it into any category at all. The same goes for Ghent ensemble Beat Love Oracle, led by composer/percussionist Frank Nuyts, which places itself somewhere between prog, jazz and classical music.

Just as in early music, a lot of established ensembles and musicians are strongholds of a scene in which both they and up and comers find room for
play. In Ghent, we find the Spectra ensemble, led by conductor and composer Filip Rathé and violinist Pieter Jansen, which is known for its continuity in line-up and quality. Similar continuity, but with a whole different vibe, can be found at Logos Foundation, founded by the composers Godfried-Willem Raes and Monique Darge. They are known for their interactive and playful methods and tools for making music, which is indispensable for a discipline that is often terribly serious.

In Brussels, the renowned Ictus ensemble maintains a privileged relationship with many leading composers and performing arts groups such as Rosas. Location matters, our ensembles increasingly build on their local rooting, and this relationship is strengthened by their residence at P.A.R.T.S., Rosas’ dance school. Meanwhile in Antwerp The Nadar Ensemble inherited the residence studio in DE SINGEL from Serge Verstockts legendary ensemble ChampdAction, while still remaining closely connected to their hometown of Sint-Niklaas.

One of Nadar’s artistic directors is the engineer and composer Stefan Prins, which immediately gives an idea of the ensemble’s inclinations, which are multidisciplinary and technologically inclined and always visually stimulating. In Sint-Niklaas they host a yearly summer academy for young musicians together with MATRIX Nex Music, but they aren’t the only ones supporting starting musicians and ensembles. I SOLISTI, one of Flanders most versatile ensembles, organises a yearly academy for composers and musicians, and HERMES ensemble supports Soundmine, an international composition summer school, hosted by MUSICA.

Over the years, HERMES has considerably expanded its field of work to crossover productions with other styles, genres and disciplines. Here we see again that the interest from early music in contemporary music also runs in the other direction. In their multimedia performance Moira they gather music by Daan Janssens together with improvisations by portative player Catalina Vicens and excerpts from Orlandus Lassus.

Meanwhile, Fabienne Séveillac‘s contemporary vocal ensemble, Hyoid, can also be counted among these established players, cementing their strong live reputation through collaborations with Spectra and Jenifer Walshe, as well as their music theatre projects focusing on contemporary themes and issues.

Most of the ensembles mentioned above have been going strong for over 20 or 30 years, but there’s also a lot of active young contemporary musicians. This is partly due to the well-deserved attention that Belgian festivals (e.g. Klara Festival and Lunalia) and concert halls (e.g. Bozar, De Bijloke & Concertgebouw Brugge) pay to today’s music, but also to the educational programmes of the ensembles mentioned above and the attention that the current education system pays to this music. An example of this attention is the GAME (Ghent Advanced Masters Ensemble), which brings together various collaborations, between students of the Ghent Conservatory’s Advanced Masters programme in contemporary music.

Nemø ensemble aims to connect young artists that are not afraid of crossing boundaries between genres and artistic disciplines. They challenge conventional concert formats, which gives rise to immersive performances that bridge the gap between the stage and the audience. The ensemble gathers quite a few exciting young musicians, among which cellist and electronics specialist Jasmijn Lootens, who also incorporates her jazz and folk activities into her work, expressive improvisational violinist Elisabeth Klinck and composer/keyboardist Ward De Jonghe.

A very exciting part of Nemø is the ensemble within an ensemble, Goggles: a duo of percussionist Wim Pelgrims and singer Esther-Elisabeth Rispens. As winners of various lied-concours and the Supernova chamber music competition, the duo has proven themselves to be highly experimental in their approach, but also very accessible because of their charismatic stage presence.

Another Supernova laureate can be found in Koi collective, and here it becomes obvious how much that competition cares about stage presence and connection with the audience. Koi, the duo of saxophonist Maarten Lauwers and pianist Emmy Wils, perform modern and contemporary music with a seldom seen combo of delicateness and power, in a way that’s able to reach beyond the traditional audience.

The Extended Music Collective, led by Stef Van Vynckt and Nina Vanhoenacker, is another up-and-coming group of performers who enjoy collaborating with each other and internationally. Composer-performers such as Heleen van Haegenborgh and improvisers such as Suzan Peeters are increasingly taking the stage.

To return to the crossroads, ever more composers and ensembles find their inspiration in cross-cultural collaborations. Obvious examples can be found in the works of Dirk Brossé and the mourned Wim Hendrickxs. More and more, however, these inspirations don’t come from the exoticisation of far away music, but are a direct and creative way of dealing with the reality of a culturally diverse country and a complex colonial history. Joris Vanvinckenroye’s “global music” platform Cluster gathers quite a few artists who incorporate this into their artistic practice, for example Osama Abdulrasol, and his project New Flemish Masters and Rumi Passion, or the duo of Ananta Roosens and Mostafa Taleb who combine western and Persian classical improvisation styles.

Of course, as is the case everywhere, the paths of popular and classical music cross again and again. Oboist and producer Dienne Bogaerts has released an intimate and personal record with Addio, dealing with the death of her grandmother and her own Italian-Belgian heritage. Solo artists like her have a hard time finding a place to create and develop their own practice, something the sector is slowly working on.

Part of this work can be found at B-Classic. B-Classic started as the Limburg festival for classical music, but has developed into a production platform that brings together artists of different walks of life into crossover projects like Orpheus Rave, a combination of analogue beats by Osaka Riot and cello of Benjamin Glorieux, and the magical ecofeminist Counterforces by Dominique De Groen and Frederik Croene.

Within early music this crossover of classical and pop also appears. Lutenist Thomas Langlois has a very honest program, coordonée, together
with jazz singer Anna Nuyten, where they combine lute songs from the time of Dowland with pop and folk music of the last 50 years. It is not the only one of its kind, but they approach it with an open and broad passion for both repertoires that radiates through their performances.

In neoclassical music, the crossroads has become its own path, and the music has a long history in Belgium, starting with bands like Berntholer and artists like Wim Mertens. Now groups like Echo Collective and the neo-baroque collective BOX are continuing to build the route, crossing different musical paths and starting collaborations along the way.

Repertoire

Of course, Flanders also values the lesser-known monuments of the Classical and Romantic periods. Orchestras such as the Brussels Philharmonic and the Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen pay tribute to them, while at the same time collaborating and engaging in dialogue with contemporary composers. Flanders also has a rich chamber music tradition. This is represented at the highest level by the quintet Het Collectief. This group was formed in 1998 from a chamber music quintet based on the Second Viennese School. Since then it has become a more flexible – expandable – ensemble of absolute world class. Also from Brussels is the larger ensemble Oxalys. In terms of its spirit and the music it plays, Oxalys began with the French chamber repertoire of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but has considerably expanded its range. The Taurus String Quartet is a very young ensemble, but its members are old hands: four experienced chamber musicians who, having played almost every other repertoire, have decided to explore the royal genre of chamber music.

The Goeyvaerts String Trio has charted an impressive course in recent years. It focuses on the great repertoire of the late 20th century in particular.

A number of talented soloists can also be found in Flanders. In the field of wind instruments, the clarinettist Roeland Hendrikx must be
mentioned, who enjoys great respect as an orchestral soloist (De Munt/La Monnaie, Belgian National Orchestra). For a number of years he has been leading his own ensemble, the Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble, which has recently released Zayt Gezunterheyt, a concert programme combining Eastern European folk and classical music. On the piano, Julien Libeer is one of those rare musicians who have achieved success without having to take part in competitions.

This brings us to Flemish vocalists of some renown. First, we must certainly name the soprano Ilse Eerens, who is slowly and wisely working on a great career. Also much in demand is the soprano Liesbeth Devos, a very versatile singer in terms of styles and genres. There are male vocal soloists who deserve a mention as well. It would be difficult to ignore the career of the tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen, who is omnipresent on the international baroque scene. Respectively a little less and a little more than a generation earlier, we find the tenor Yves Saelens and the still active international bass-baritone Werner van Mechelen. Both are dedicated opera, concert and lieder singers. The ‘vocal instrumental’ ensemble Revue Blanche, around the formidable soprano Lore Binon and a somewhat Debussian trio of the viola, harp and flute are also of a vocal bent.

Music theatre and multidisciplinary work

And without vocals, there would be no opera or music theatre. Flanders has a long history of these genres and other crossings between music and performing arts. In addition to the activities of Ictus, Nadar, I Solisti, and B’rock which we already mentioned, there’s also a host of music theatre companies that have built up a legacy, and young companies that are making a name for themselves.

A few of the established ones, LOD muziektheater, Muziektheater Transparant, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and its experimental production department, Vonk, have joined forces for the music theatre biennale All Arias. Last edition saw creations of e.g. the Afropera The Golden Stool by Gorges Ocloo and the sculptural one woman opera Figurine by Lieselot De Wilde.

Zonzo Compagnie has developed the celebrated international festival concept Big Bang of music theatre for young audiences, but they still also create their own projects, usually focussing on one composer, like the new unRAVELed introducing the life and music of Maurice Ravel to everybody from the age of six.

It’s not always easy to find a place for new companies in a sector that already has such an impressive legacy, but collaboration seems to be the key to succeeding. In Ghent a few young companies and artists have begun to strengthen their relations and grow together through the platform VAMP. This collective is an initiative of Helene Bracke, Jolien De Gendt and Liza Dendapper. Helene Bracke, is a singer and director who has created for young audiences, among which @Astra, an immersive experience after a concept of Wim Hendrickx and Runny Nose, about faces and mobile phones for De Spiegel. She also made work for more mature audiences with frequent collaborator, soprano Jolien De Gendt for the “pocket sized” production company CloseOpera, among which Suor Angelica after Puccini’s Il Trittico. Liza Dedapper is a soprano and acrobat, who creates flexible and adaptable chamber opera’s together with set designer/director Mien Bogaert under the name Operawerf. Also in Ghent, Broder, a recent fusion of TG VGVR, Aardvork and Brussels Experimental, has taken residence in the ARCA theatre, where they host a shared working space for music theatre companies.

Recently, scientific and journalistic forms of music theatre have started to emerge. The most fully formed example of this is the musical journalism podcasts and theatre shows of Andrea Voets, but productions like Boorplatform by sound designer and radio maker Lotte Nijsten and Ear to Sea by Cusk Collective (led by bio engineer, harpist and violinist Jenna Vergeynst) make the complex world around us more tangible through music and sound art. This also counts for the “Afrique Concrète” of composer, field recordist, sound archivist and radio artist Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman. Her recent production UMVA, a synthesis work in which all Lierman’s facets come together. Via headphones she immerses the audience in a hybrid sound world with instrumental and vocal music, sound effects and abstract electronics, bringing radioart to a bigger stage.

Flanders still produces traditional opera, although contemporary opera can hardly be called traditional. Composers like Daan Janssens and Frederick Neirinck are known for their ability to tell captivating stories through their compositions. Annelies Van Parys collaborated with Gaea Schoeters on the chamber opera ‘Notwehr,’ which portrays the powerful narrative of two women sharing a prison cell. Banchieri‘s timeless madrigal cycle, ‘La barca di Venezia a Padua,’ echoes themes of the past, intertwining with Van Parys’ and Schoeters’ work, exploring notions of activism, rights, and freedom.

A closing word

The bird has flown. We’ve seen an intersecting landscape of roads, roundabouts and cul de sacs. We’ve gotten familiar with modest and grand monuments and with the distinctive ribbon development, because everywhere a Flemish artist comes, they feel the need to create. If you’ve gotten lost along this trip, or want to further discover unexplored territories, feel free to browse our database of artists, artworks and organisations at database.kunsten.be, or get in touch with the Flanders Arts Institute, they’ll gladly be your guide.