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03-04-2024:

Unity in Diversity #2

The second edition of the European lute song project Unity in Diversity starts at the end of April. Lutenist Jurgen De bruyn and mandolin virtuoso Alon Sariel will be joined by singers Lore Binon and Elly Aerden, by Vittoria Pagani on the Indian Sarod and by the ney and lavta player Christos Barbas. The creation takes place during LUNALIA, Festival of Flanders Mechelen, and is part of the Mechelen city festival Construct Europe, which coincides with the Belgian presidency of the EU Council. The premiere will be followed by concerts in Hasselt and Dilbeek.

To tune in, you can listen to the podcast made by Evita Nossent, in which the musicians talk about their experiences during the first residency at Laus Polyphoniae Antwerp. They testify about their personal music practice and how they set themselves up for new encounters.

In the words of Alon: “...what we present on stage is the wishful thinking of what could be in Europe in the future, if the European dream actually works”.

Podcast

03-04-2024:

The Mass Man at O. Festival

On 17 May, The Mass Man, a collaboration between Zefiro Torna and Muziektheater Transparant, will be a guest at the O. Festival in Rotterdam.

Director Wouter Van Looy, video artist Wim Catrysse and writer Peter Verhelst base the performance on Elias Canetti's book 'Mass and Power'. The Nobel laureate describes his experiences of mass movements in the early 20th century and mixes them with impressive sociological and anthropological insights. The book not only reads like a reflection on the past, it is also a guide for today.

Soloist singer/performers, instrumentalists on lute, cornetto, trumpet and drums, a sound installation artist and electronic soundscapes give new form and expression to a wide range of subgenres of medieval crusader song. They deliver a nuanced picture of a complex time and turning point in history, marked by changing identities and worldviews.

Trailer

04-02-2024:

22-03-2023:

L’ALQUIMISTA in Barcelona

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.

15-06-2021:

Release documentary PAST >| ORALE


As an introduction to the performance PAST >I ORALE Zefiro Torna asked film maker Mathias Ruelle to create a short documentary. Through the eyes of five characters, this film highlights a few elementary parts from which the performance originated. The music of PAST >I ORALE - a wonderful mix of Beethoven, sound art and alternative pop - resonates as a soundtrack.

> Watch the documentary here (from June 15th until July 13th)

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Sonorous Sketches

—  (2018)

Zefiro Torna - Bram Bosteels

As part of the 'Flemish masters in Situ' project (2018-2020) by Openbaar Kunstenbezit Vlaanderen (OKV) and Tourism Flanders, Zefiro Torna creates 'Sonorous Sketches' tailored to a number of art sites.

These Sonorous Sketches are a metaphor for wonder and bewilderment, for escaping time. Like a penetrating resonance of the past, they stimulate the audience’s imagination and lead to contemplation and a broader perception of the particular work of art.

The subject or time context of the artwork in question forms the starting point for the choice of a musical composition - a monodic or polyphonic work, baroque or madrigal. Then Zefiro Torna searches for specific stories and sonorous elements that are part of the habitat of this piece, from environmental sounds to the sounds generated by specific rituals or local customs and traditions. The artist's studio as well as his actions can also produce sound material.

Sound artist Bram Bosteels records and reconstructs these sounds into a soundscape, and together with the recorded music forges them into a Sonorous Sketch: a world of sound from which a piece of music emerges. This sonorous landscape makes the listener tune in to the bygone sounds of the past. Sound as present absence.

Sonorous Sketch I / Augustine in Ecstasy

‘Sonorous Sketch I / Augustine in Ecstasy' was commissioned by AMUZ on the occasion of the four hundredth anniversary of the St August church and the integration of three new artworks by Jan Fabre in the context of Antwerp Baroque 2018.

The music chosen was the collection of compositions 'Paradisus Sacris Cantionibus Consitus' by Peter Philips. It was first printed at Phalesius in Antwerp in 1628, the year of the inauguration of the altarpieces in St. Augustine's Church. Philips' motet 'O si quando videbo gaudium', performed by soprano Annelies Van Gramberen and theorist Jurgen De bruyn, is substantively in line with the writings and ideas of the patron saint and church father Augustine, who is depicted on the left side altar.

Bram Bosteels found inspiration in the symbolism of this vision painted by Van Dyck, more specifically in the soul's upward-facing desire to become one with the Holy Spirit (depicted in the painting as a dove). He processed into a cosmic soundscape Unheimliche sounds produced by 'prepared' pigeons or doves that seek out the light in the spatial context of an abandoned cooling tower, along with 17th-century music.

The sonorous sketch can be heard from 3 July to 10 December 2018 during a visit to AMUZ.

credits
Annelies Van Gramberen soprano
Jurgen De bruyn theorbo
Bram Bosteels sound art
Kobe Wens camera
Liesbeth Marit direction and editing
Kevin Defossez pigeons