Be part of the music, that's what Klarafestival 2023 promises. From 10 to 26 March 2023, the broadcasting festival brings the best of international classical music to our capital under the motto 'Become music'. This year, festival artist Barbara Hannigan sets the tone. The world-renowned soprano and conductor knows how to breathe (new) life into classical music like no other. Artistic director Joost Fonteyne looks forward to a diverse programme with around thirty concerts in various Brussels venues including those of Flagey and BOZAR. Together with established partners and new friends, Klarafestival combines stimulating musical overwhelm with pure beauty and innovative musical experiences.
"The Klarafestival visitor can essentially mainly take a deep breath before entering, let go of everything for a moment and immerse themselves in the music with an open mind and open ears."
The magical equilibrium of Barbara Hannigan
Festival artist Barbara Hannigan is regarded as one of the most interesting names in classical music. "Hannigan knows how to fill music – which is sometimes centuries old – with contemporary relevance and make its importance felt like no other. With great passion, she lets the listener experience music firsthand. The theme 'Become Music' grew out of conversations with Barbara Hannigan about her vision of music. As a festival, we can only be enthusiastic about that," says Joost Fonteyne. Hannigan investigates how immersive music can be and searches for the fragile and breathtaking moment in which singers, instrumentalists, conductors, composers and the audience come together in a rare moment of perfect equilibrium. Hannigan always starts from the idea that experiencing music is an interaction between audience and artist(s). "I am convinced that the audience does not merely listen, but actively contributes to a performance. Every listener brings their own energy and their own experiences into the hall," says Hannigan.
During the opening concert, she conducts and sings Mahler's Fourth Symphony; a musical surprise of considerable magnitude (Messiaen - Mahler 10.03 | 20:00). Furthermore, she creates an immersive audiovisual experience with the legendary Labèque sisters (piano) in which she traverses nine centuries of music and provides contemporary interpretations of, among others, Hildegard von Bingen and music by composer, guitarist and The National band member Bryce Dessner (Electric Fields 19.03 | 19:00). With her mentorship project Equilibrium (EQ), finally, Hannigan shares the stage with young promising musicians whom she coaches intensively (Music among Friends 16.03 | 20:00).
Spring premieres
This year again, Klarafestival is committed to plenty of (world) premieres. There is the world premiere of the Viola Concerto by Cassandra Miller by Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir conducted by Ilan Volkov and featuring violist Lawrence Power (Janáček - Miller - Bartók 11.03 | 20:00). The Belcea Quartet brings fresh work, namely by Guillaume Connesson, co-produced by Klarafestival (Schubert - Connesson - Shostakovich 14.03 | 20:00).
The music theatre productions and Klarafestival co-productions Counterforces and PREY are also being performed for the very first time. In Counterforces, soprano Lore Binon, singer-songwriter IKRAAAN and performer Amina Osmanu tackle the music of Frederik Croene from their own background. With the texts by Dominique De Groen, they resist a hopeless patriarchy and clichés about being a woman (Counterforces 24.03 | 20:00).
For PREY, finally, theatre maker Kris Verdonck and composer Annelies Van Parys collaborated around the chilling insight that we are all food. Starting from the work of Australian ecofeminist Val Plumwood, three generations of women explore a world in which humans no longer play the leading role (PREY 25.03 | 18:00, 26.03 | 20:00).