Next week we will begin the rehearsals for music theater performance L'ALQUIMISTA in Barcelona, at the Teatro Nacional de Catalunya. Michael De Cock created and directs a theatre adaptation of the book The Abyss by Belgian writer Marguerite Yourcenar. Lutenist Jurgen De bruyn joins the stage and, together with composer Alain Franco, provides the soundtrack for the story, which is set in 16th-century Europe with a focus on the last years of the Bruges doctor and alchemist Zeno and on universal themes of humanity and freedom in turbulent times.
The premiere will take place on the 11th of May 2023. The tickets are on sale vie TNC.
De Theaterkrant describes The Mass Man as "intriguing musical meditation on mass, power and manipulation".
The full review is available on the website.
We had the pleasure of showing THE MASS MAN to a sold out audience in Concertgebouw Brugge. Prior to the performance, Muziektheater Transparant director Wouter Van Looy and artistic director of Zefiro Torna Jurgen De bruyn shared their thoughts with the audience. They explained how Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti and his masterly book on the themes of mass and power, medieval crusader songs and film images by Wim Catrysse form the raw material for a gripping music theatre performance.
Theatre critic Johan Thielemans wrote an engaging review.
The CD TIME CRAWLS is out on the label HOMERECORDS.BE and also available on our webshop (> CD).
Zefiro Torna takes us into a timeless universe with a reinterpretation of the 17th century broken consort music. Melodies intuitively created by flute player Jowan Merckx received a new arrangement for flute, violin, viola da gamba, violone, harp and lute by composers Marnix De Cat and Martin Valcke. The new written music bears traces of baroque and traditional music from all over Europe. The music, which is sometime melancholic, sometimes nimble and festive, fascinates by its ingeniously crafted texture and invites to dance.
This autumn, the alchemistic laboratory BALSAM with Laika, Theatre of the Senses will be on tour again. After two series of performances at the Boulevard Festival in Den Bosch and Cultura Nova in Heerlen in August, the team is ready for it! Prepare yourself for a bewitching ritual in which music, scents and flavours immerse you in the shimmering world of alchemy. Besides the Greenwich+Docks International Festival in London and a tour to Portugal and France, BALSAM also passes by a number of Belgian venues.
--> Take a look in the agenda for all dates
Zefiro Torna - Antwerps Kathedraalkoor
In 1582, Jaakko Finno, headmaster of the Turku cathedral school, and Petri, a Finnish student at the university of Rostock, publish a unique collection of Latin songs for the Schola Aboensi (Latin for Turku).
This book, Piae Cantiones ecclesiasticae et scholasticae veterum episcoporum, contains music of an wide chronological and geographical scope. Stylistically the content is clearly older than the publishing date might suggest. Some compositions can be traced back to the year 1000 AD. However, the main body of the compositions belongs to the 15th-century Germanic-Bohemian tradition of cantiones. Moreover, there are links with French, Spanish and Italian sources and Flemish masters such as Jacob Obrecht, which can probably be explained by the continuing presence of Finnish students in Catholic universities all over Europe.
The hymns, most of which are Christmas songs, are grouped according to the liturgical year: Christmas, Easter and Whitsun. The remaining songs deal with the transitoriness of earthly life, the condition humaine, the life of school children, biblical subjects and the awakening of nature in spring.
Few musical collections from the 16th century have become so strongly embedded in the contemporary musical life as the Piae Cantiones in Finland. Since the rise of national romanticism in the early 20th century, they occupy a central place in the Finnish choral and church repertoire. The Finnish religious folk music also contains variations on the hymns, and composers have made arrangements of the songs, e.g. the ‘Carminalia’ by Sibelius.
Zefiro Torna performs the Piae Cantiones with 15th-century instruments, one voice and a boys choir. The academic and folkloric music traditions are brought together by the use of the Finnish cymbalo or kantele.
Els Van Laethem soprano
Jowan Merckx flute, bagpipes
Liam Fennelly fiddle
Frank Van Eycken percussion
Timo Väänänen kantele
Jurgen De bruyn lute, artistic direction
Children choir - Antwerps Kathedraalkoor directed by Sebastiaan Van Steenberge
Recorded on 1 - 3 June 2007 at the Academiezaal, Sint-Truiden (Belgium)
Released by Et'cetera