An evening at the Antwerp Guitar Festival 2025
Despite the monstrous traffic jams on the Antwerp Ring, guitar enthusiasts from Belgium and abroad found their way to De Klap in Deurne, where Jan Depreter organized the Antwerp Guitar Festival for the fourteenth consecutive year. The festival distinguishes itself through the unique combination of international stars and the versatility of guitar styles, from classical to fusion and flamenco.
A warm home for international stars
On Saturday, November 8, Klassiek Centraal was there. We enjoyed the special, almost familial atmosphere that makes this festival so unique: musicians without pretense who attended each other's concerts, visitors and artists who chatted at the bar about their shared passion for the guitar. The combination of professionalism and hospitality, made possible by an enthusiastic group of volunteers, meant that both musicians and audience felt immediately at home.
Jan Depreter (with whom you can read an interview on Klassiek Centraal) had promised beforehand, with a wink toward Julian Bream, to think "outside the box" when programming. And he succeeded wonderfully. During three recitals, we heard a sample of the enormous versatility of the instrument: from the refined classical lyricism of Florian Palier, through the creative fusion of Sönke Meinen, to the fiery flamenco of Grisha Goryachev.
These performances not only showcased the virtuosity of the guitarists, but also their ability to captivate the audience, each in their own way.
Florian Palier: serene splendor of color and poetic lyricism
The evening was opened by Florian Palier, an Austrian guitarist and composer who set the tone immediately with his Belgian debut. You can also read an interview with him on Klassiek Centraal.
His recital was one for connoisseurs: restrained, colorful, and infused with musical intelligence. What a rich and refined palette of colors he conjured from his guitar! No grand gestures or showy virtuosity, but a serene, integral way of making music. Throughout his recital, he struck the right note time and again and moved his audience with rare musicality and inner peace.
The works of Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944) formed an ideal prelude. In pieces such as Oración para Todos, Mazurka Apasionada, Julia Florida and País de Abanico, warmth and melancholy resonated, rooted in the rich South American tradition that Barrios elevated to art with his poetic sensibility. Palier let that musical splendor shine without losing the intimacy of the music.
Before he performed some works by Emilio Pujol (1886-1960), Palier explained why this composer means so much to him at this moment. Ten months ago his little son was born – coincidentally also named Emilio. Until then, Palier had focused mainly on contemporary works, but after the birth he felt spontaneously drawn to the warm lyricism of Pujol. His interpretations of the Impromptu, the Romanza and the Tres Piezas Españolas breathed genuine tenderness. I have since happily added the Romanza and the Guajira to my own playlist.
Then came his own composition, the Sonatina (Hommage à Rainer Maria Rilke) – a work in which Florian Palier (°1987), inspired by his favorite poet, reflects on our time and the human search for meaning. The first movement sounded hurried and restless, as if the soul was adrift. In the second movement he alluded to Rilke's symbolism of the color "yellow" – a color that in the poet's work is often associated with death and transience. The third movement brought Rilke's existential restlessness even more strongly to the fore: the eternal search for a home, for inner peace.
The piece, written in 2018, seems almost visionary in retrospect. At that time, no one could have foreseen what tumultuous years the world still had in store. Great artists carry that quality within them: they sense the spirit of the times in advance. Palier's Sonatina proved in that respect to be an unexpected mirror of the later social unrest – a musical preview of the frenzy and uncertainty that has since come to characterize our world.
To conclude, he treated us to a delightful Gavotte by Barrios, leaving the audience with a smile. Light, elegant and perfectly placed after the intensity of his own work – an airy finale to a recital that was spirited and thoughtful from beginning to end.
Sönke Meinen: virtuosity with humor and narrative power
Next it was the turn of Sönke Meinen (°1991), whose interview on Klassiek Centraal you could also read in the run-up to the festival. He has already completed an impressive tour of no less than fifty concerts in North America this year, and was now visiting Belgium for the first time. That he made his entrance here count is beyond question. An upright true musician who is at the same time an entertaining storyteller – both verbally and through his instrument.
During his recital, he performed exclusively his own work, in which playful compositions were repeatedly interspersed with more meditative, sometimes melancholic pieces. The result was a rich and layered recital in which virtuosity and emotion went hand in hand. For each piece, he took a moment to acquaint the audience with its origins with a touch of humor.
With Fake Forgery, he immediately set the tone. The piece arose after a curious incident: Meinen was once held for five hours at a police station because they thought he had paid with counterfeit money – the bill had simply been in the wash too long. The irony and playfulness of that story were reflected in the rhythmic, light-footed character of the music.
Mirror of Water, on the other hand, was a restrained tribute to his grandfather, who worked in shipping in northern Germany and whom Meinen never knew. The piece resonated with the swell of the sea – a poetic homage, further enhanced by the fact that Meinen later found an image of his grandfather with a guitar in an old photo album. A touching thought: that his love for the instrument perhaps passed through the family after all. The audience listened breathlessly, in a hushed silence that spoke volumes.
But Meinen loves contrasts. With Sparklemuffin – a virtuosic and playful work inspired by the Australian "peacock spider" that became famous on YouTube for its mating dance – he immediately lifted the mood. Where the original video showed the spider dancing to Bee Gees music, Meinen wrote his own soundtrack, energetic, funny and technically dazzling.
Alpacalypse was another highlight: born from a failed walk with an alpaca. The nervous gait of the animal and the composer's stress were transformed into brilliant syncopations and surprising rhythms – humor and virtuosity in one.
With La Ciudad Soñada, Meinen also proved his worth in flamenco, while Heartland formed a warm ode to his current home Hamburg, his "old, new home". Finally, he paid tribute to jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie with A Night in Tunisia, not without mentioning that he regretted not having written it himself.
After deafening applause, he gave the audience an encore: a tender, surprisingly intimate arrangement of Let It Be – a beautiful, hushed finale to a recital that radiated charm, humor and musical mastery from beginning to end.
The audience responded with unanimous enthusiasm: we heard an artist who managed to combine technical virtuosity with seemingly effortless, disarming human warmth.
Grisha Goryachev: fireworks with nuance only at the end
While the previous recitals offered a well-considered and varied program that captivated from beginning to end, Grisha Goryachev's recital unfortunately disappointed somewhat in terms of programming. Yet expectations were high: in 2017 he played here and brought the house down, and once again he had come specially from the United States for this festival. Goryachev is praised worldwide as one of the few guitarists who can authentically perform the Andalusian solo flamenco tradition, with stunning technique and rhythmic insight.
That Goryachev is a phenomenon is beyond question. It remains truly astonishing how his fingers rush across the strings with a precision that seems almost superhuman. At first, that is impressive to watch: the sheer power, the lightning-fast picados and the virtuosic rasgueados – as if a hurricane sweeps through the hall. But over time, that constant intensity began to dominate, causing the program to lack the much-needed variety in color, rest and tension.
His playing had something of an F-16 flamenco player about it: technically brilliant, but sometimes too taut and explosive to fully capture the poetic soul of flamenco. In works such as Malagueña de Lecuona (arr. Paco de Lucía), Ímpetu by Mario Escudero (1928-2004) and Los Caireles by Esteban de Sanlúcar (1943-2022), he demonstrated his finger dexterity and virtuosity, but the emotional core – the melancholy and the singing line of the cante – remained somewhat in the background.
Only towards the end did more depth and nuance enter his playing. With works such as Ventanas al Alma by Vicente Amigo (°1967), he suddenly revealed a different side of himself: warmer in tone, with refined phrasing that finally gave the music the necessary breathing space. Also in Monasterio de Sal by Paco de Lucía (1947-2014), introspection came through for the first time – the kind of restraint that truly brings flamenco to life. Had he alternated these works earlier with his virtuosic showpieces, the recital would undoubtedly have been more balanced.
However, the audience in the well-filled hall paid little attention to this: the reactions were ecstatic, and the standing ovation spoke volumes. For many, this was undoubtedly a spectacular highlight. Yet after the previous recitals, I was left a little hungry. Technically masterful, but the soul – the duende, that elusive mystical element that elevates flamenco to something timeless – only truly came to life in the closing pieces.
Three worlds, one instrument: a festival to cherish
Looking back on the day, I discovered three intriguing and diverse facets of the guitar: the refined and poetic classical style of Florian Palier, the inventive and virtuosic fusion of Sönke Meinen, and the fiery, rhythmic intensity of Grisha Goryachev. Together, they formed a fascinating palette that fully demonstrated the versatility of the instrument, from introspective lyricism and subtle colors to spectacle and rhythmic power.
The Antwerp Guitar Festival is a music festival that Antwerp can be proud of. Thanks to Jan Depreter's international network, world-class artists come to the city, making the festival an important meeting place for enthusiasts from home and abroad. Antwerp became the guitar capital of Europe this weekend, and for that reason the festival deserves a firm place in the city's rich cultural landscape. It brings not only top-level music, but also creates a warm, hospitable atmosphere in which audience, artists and volunteers meet and inspire each other.
We will certainly be there again next year, because this festival left us wanting more: an intriguing mix of virtuosity, passion and connection around one of the most beautiful instruments in the world.
