Zefiro Torna announces a new spring with groundbreaking multidisciplinary creations, international collaborations and timeless music that touches body and mind. Download our brochure, full of inspiration for your cultural season 2020-21
This fall, in addition to a few concerts, Zefiro Torna is preparing a number of (inter)national productions that will premiere in spring 2020.
We are especially looking forward to work with the theater company Laika. Together we'll transform the Balsam program into a mysterious alchemical lab where the public is served elixirs, ointments, syrups, all while the music enchants.
In addition, we will bring a few noon concerts at Opera Vlaanderen with the Champions des Dames program.
We'll also celebrate Beethoven 2020 with the hybrid concert installation PASTORALE, in which the music helps shape an ecology of microscopic life forms.
Zefiro Torna – Vocalconsort Berlin – Ghalia Benali
The Hebrew Bible contains an extremely mysterious book known as the Song of Salomon, Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Songs. The book reads like a compilation of poems thematically centered around the theme of human love. The main characters are two lovers of the opposite sex. The poetry is rich in its imagery, often plainly erotic and suggestive. The Song of Songs is set in a sublimated world, it can be seen as an allegory for God's love and as a drive for mysticism. For centuries it has formed an inspiration for numerous oriental and western artists as well as scientist.
Together with Vocalconsort Berlin and the Tunisian singer and artist Ghalia Benali, Zefiro Torna created this exceptional program in 2013. Single voiced madrigals with instrumental accompaniment, vocal duets and trios, a women's choir and polyphonic settings by composers such as von Bingen, de Machaut, Dunstable, Agricola, Lassus, Grandi, Sances, Monteverdi, Schütz, Buxtehude and J. Ch. Bach interact with traditional Arab songs, narrating texts by ‘Sufi’ poets such as Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya and by a new generation of poets such as the Egyptian Abdallah Ghoneem. Creating an inspiring dialogue between cultures and history, The Allegory of Desire bridges the distance between sacrality and humanity.
This production with an international cast has been staged on prestigious podiums and festivals in Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg, Nürnberg, Winterthur, Sevilla and Vilnius. In the upcoming years the program will further be promoted internationally. A recording by Warner Classics was released on 21 October 2016.
Zefiro Torna
Vocalconsort Berlin
Ghalia Benali Arabic chant, compositions
Jurgen De bruyn artistic direction
Folkert Ude dramaturgy
Jörg Bittner scenography, light design
Interview Festival van Vlaanderen-Mechelen 01.10.2013
Annemarie Peeters, De Standaard 07.10.2013
Elcorreoweb Sevilla 11.04.2014
Elclubexpress Sevilla 12.04.2014
Lezersbrief Kyburgiade 04.08.2014
Landshuter Zeitung 25.04.2016
Birgit Markert, Gmünder Tagespost 02.08.2016
Martine D. Mergeay, La Libre 12.09.2016
De Standaard (cd-recensie) 19.10.2016
AZ-AN Musikseite 04.11.2016
Het Nieuwsblad/De Gentenaar 01.12.2016
Portici 01.01.2017
Rootsworld.com 01.11.2017
Focus Knack 20.02.2019