Les Festivals de Wallonie, that's 7 festivals over 4 months, 100 concerts and around 700 musicians. An extensive and diverse offering with plenty of Belgian premieres, in which we're happy to guide you. Below is a selection of the most spectacular artists, enchanting venues, unmissable concerts and inspiring stories for a summer outing to the southern part of our country, with a generous dose of culture.
Female conductors are no longer an exception – and fortunately – but
Glass Marcano is one in a thousand. Her story fits perfectly into the festival theme 'Utopias'. Marcano has had a remarkable journey, from disadvantaged Venezuela where she financed her law studies and conducting training as a street fruit seller, to laureate of the prestigious conducting competition La Maestra. From a young age she was discovered by the remarkable social music program El Sistema, founded in 1975 by conductor José Antonio Abreu. In 2017 she graduated and in 2018 she was appointed chief conductor of the Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony Orchestra. After her victory in 2020 of the La Maestra Competition in Paris, she became guest conductor at the Symphony Orchestra of Région Centre-Val de Loire, and on June 30 she makes her Belgian debut and gets to open Les Festivals de Wallonie together with Brussels Philharmonic in Flagey!
Flemish mezzo-soprano
Helene Bracke presents
Madame Vitesse, a music theatre production commissioned by Les Festivals de Wallonie. The family production from age 8 is a musical tribute to Clärenore Stinnes, the first female driver to drive around the world in a car. On stage is Vivi, who is eager to follow in Clärenore's footsteps and wants to break her record.
Madame Vitesse is a true total experience and mixes French chanson and world, classical and pop music with fragments from Clärenore's own film. In this multimedia production, the question is raised what is part of real life and what belongs to the world of videos we see on social media. Joëlle Charlier portrays Clärenore and Wouter Vande Ginste takes a seat at the piano. This music theatre production will possibly also be translated into Dutch for a Flemish tour.
Les Festivals de Wallonie also chooses a
festival artist each year. This year the honour goes to Swiss pianist
Beatrice Berrut. On July 1 she invites sisters
Sylvia and Stéphanie Huang for the opening concert in Saint-Hubert. Together with the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra they bring the extraordinary
Triple Concerto by Beethoven. Berrut takes the festival theme 'Utopias' as a thread through her work. During the entire festival period she gives concerts in Flagey, Stavelot, Charleroi, Lasne and Bergen.
The Juillet Musical de Saint-Hubert festival also crossed the language border several times for its programming. Among others
Lore Binon & the Lingua Franca Ensemble, Helene Bracke with
Madame Vitesse, the
Flemish Radio Choir and pianist
Koenraad Sterckx under the direction of
Bart Van Reyn and harpist
Anneleen Lenaerts will visit the Luxembourg province between 1 and 23 July.
Musical gems
Les Festival de Wallonie, spanning around four months, is also the perfect time to go treasure hunting for musical gems. On June 30 in Flagey the Festival Orchestra under the direction of
Shirley Laub brings Richard Strauss' breathtaking
Metamorphosen in dialogue with the vision of Brussels producer and performer
Before Tigers. At the same time, French
slam poet Camille Pier gives a fresh reading of Goethe's texts.
Conductor
Alexis Kossenko and his Les Ambassadeurs elevates the Festival of Names on July 12 to higher spheres with Zelenka's
Te Deum and Bach's
Magnificat. Soprano
Sandrine Piau and musical ensemble
Les Paladins under the direction of Jérôme Correas dive into Handel's operas on October 1 in Liège, on the occasion of their new album. On September 16, also in Liège, lutenist
Bor Zuljan lets his unique musical language be heard during improvisations on the first printed scores for lute.
More info via lesfestivalsdewallonie.be
