Winner of Nordic Music Prize 2022 comes to Kempen

The festival Musica Divina brings heavenly and healing music each autumn to the beautiful abbeys, beguinages and churches in the Kempen region. It is an organization of the Festival van Vlaanderen Kempen in collaboration with Averbode, Tongerlo (Westerlo), Mol/Postel, Geel, Heist-op-den-Berg, Herentals, Hoogstraten, Lier and Turnhout. The festival motto in 2023 is "Caring for one another". The many dimensions of this motto are addressed during this festival edition: the guardian angel, caring for the deceased and the bereaved, caring for oneself, rune songs, caring for people in flight, the ceremony of marriage, caring today for a future, caring for nature, allowing darkness and sharing the breath of life with one another. Among others, the Finnish Ensemble Gamut! and Norwegian hardanger violinist and 2022 Nordic Music Prize winner Benedicte Maurseth bring healing music from the far north to the Kempen. With her album Hárr, Benedicte Maurseth won the Nordic Music Prize 2022 last year. During Musica Divina she presents it for the first time in Belgium, on October 5th in the Sint-Pieterskerk in Turnhout. The jury described the album as follows: "An enchanting fusion of traditional folk instrumentation with modern technology and field recordings. This is music that is as starkly beautiful as the landscape that inspired it and that in its own gentle powerful way engages with the vital issues of ecology and community." In her music, Maurseth shows that caring for nature and caring for one another are synonymous. With top musicians such as Christian Wallumrød, Håkon Mørch Stene and Per Zanussi at her side, this valuable musical message will shine brightly. Heavenly and healing music, this essence of Musica Divina is perfectly captured in the project RE by the Finnish Ensemble Gamut!, in Heist-op-den-Berg on September 28th. In it they explore, among other things, the various traditions surrounding healing and music in the oldest preserved Finnish manuscripts and rune songs. They combine historical instruments and electronics in a refreshing way. Finnish folk, medieval music, improvisation and soundscapes go hand in hand. It will be a concert as invigorating as a walk in the Finnish forests. Further on the Musica Divina programme are, among others, BRYGGEN Bruges Strings in the abbey of Averbode, Graindelavoix in Geel, Les Muffatti in Herentals, Voces Suaves in the abbey of Tongerlo, Psallentes & Revue Blanche in Mol, Romina Lischka in the abbey of Postel, Carousel in Lier and Currende in Hoogstraten.

The full programme can be found at: www.musica-divina.be.