All three recently started working at Bozar are launching a highly substantial new season program: musical director Jeroen Vanacker in a duo with Aurore Aubouin and the new intendant of the BNO, the Belgian National Orchestra, Bob Permentier, orchestra in residence at the venue
For Vanacker it is his first attempt after completing that wonderful trajectory in Brugge. What appeals to him about this Brussels Bozar is of course that it is a "house of arts" in the plural. In Brugge there was certainly music and dance, but here the context is broader with the possibility for truly transmusical projects. There are the literature debates, there are the visual arts, the exhibitions, opening in September with John Baldessari and later "Beauty and Ugliness in the Renaissance". And then there's Europalia Spanje with among others "Goya and Spanish Realism". The music program runs not without reason under the motto "Embrace Complexity". Vanacker: "Bozar is not a complex of silos each with their own content but there are many lines running through everything and the dividing walls have become very porous, there is a lot of collaboration, whereby for example that Europalia with Goya inspires us to also couple two concerts to it and that also goes for example about a brand new percussion festival Beats & Pieces, which is our project, but where the people from literature add poetry to it. All those connections that arise here I find tremendously fascinating."
And of course there are the top performers, some of whom only want to come to Brussels. So on the program are the London Symphony Orchestra with Antonio Pappano, the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam and the Wiener Symphoniker. And in preparation for the Elisabeth competition for cello comes Argentine star cellist Sol Gabetta. For contemporary music we will hear work by American Julia Wolfe and on International Women's Day there is a three-part tribute to Nadia Boulanger. And jazz lovers also get Brad Mehldau served up. Sunday morning features the "Concert Croissant" again with among others violinist Maya Levy, "Young Musician's Prize 2023" from the Association of the Music Press.
It is just a selection of the offering that Jeroen Vanacker can now provide. Does he miss Brugge? "Missing has a negative connotation, difficult to answer. But I of course think back with tremendous affection to the audience that came there, to the people who work there, to the artists, to the building, I miss all of them but I also got a lot in return: the chance to explore new paths, now there is so much joy to come to very different things in a completely different context."
The BNO, orchestra in residence and long-time partner of Bozar is going to work even more closely with the house of arts. It launches a number of compact concerts of one hour without intermission where a "classical" and beloved symphony is performed and clearly introduced by VRT presenter Thomas Vanderveken. In the vision of BNO intendant Bob Permentier this should lead to audience expansion. The series is called "Start to Classic". The rehearsal room of the orchestra right across from Bozar in the Ravensteingalerij is also being completely renovated so BNO musicians can already rehearse as if they were already on the stage of that famous Henri Le Boeuf hall. And there is still work to be done, in Bozar itself. The former hall M has been completely stripped to make it more modern but also more as Horta wanted it, after all he wrote that in his memoirs. The formwork on the former supporting pillars is gone and the concrete structure is now visible and we see Horta as a "brutalism" architect.
Yet some special technological innovation. Thanks to a fiber connection from the Brussels cathedral you can experience an exceptional organ concert in Bozar. The organist (Thierry Escaich) in the cathedral and the orchestra in the Henri Le Boeuf hall bring work by Stravinsky, Fauré, Poulenc and Copland synchronously to the listener in Bozar. That is indeed exceptional.