10.11.26, 12:00, Ongehoord Erfgoed, studenten KASK & Conservatorium, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen

Belgian Music Days, dat betekent veel muziek van eigen bodem, met een bijzondere focus op werk van nog levende componisten. Het Brusselse Ensemble Fractales wisselt vier keer van gedaante dankzij stukken van Daan Janssens, Eliott Delafosse, Stefan Prins en Pierre Slinckx. Manuel Hermia (saxofoon/compositie) werkte lang aan zijn Rajazz-theorie (een combinatie van Indiase raga’s met jazz) en doet die theorie vol passie uit de doeken. Met zijn Rajazzic tribe brengt hij ze al even gepassioneerd in de praktijk. Pianist Brecht Valckenaers focust zich dan weer volledig op hedendaagse pianomuziek van Belgische makelij, met onder meer een creatie van Pieter Schuermans en eigen werk. Studenten van de Koninklijke Conservatoria van Gent, Antwerpen en Brussel doken in de archieven en visten tussen de 2 miljoen partituren enkele erfgoedparels op.

Students from the conservatories of Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp are bringing out their brass instruments under the baton of Luc Vertommen. Together, they will perform a programme featuring compositions by Walton, Dobson, Gregson and Mussorgsky.

Vertommen is a conductor, teacher and a passionate connoisseur of wind music, with a strong international reputation within the genre.

Yasuaki Shimizu

The Japanese saxophonist, composer and producer Yasuaki Shimizu has been active in the music world for almost fifty years. His work moves effortlessly between pop, jazz, minimalism, soundtracks and pure experimentation. He has collaborated with artists including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk and Van Dyke Parks. Cult albums ‘Kakashi’ and ‘Utakata No Hibi’, masterful fusions of Japanese folk and pop elements, have found a new audience in recent years thanks to reissues on Palto Flats. Thanks to the refined electronic/disco production style, they sound just as fresh as they did in the early 1980s.

Following a completely sold-out first-ever North American tour in 2025, he is now set to perform at our RUISKAMER for the first time, a unique opportunity to hear and see a living legend up close.

Yasuaki Shimizu is a maverick saxophonist, composer and producer whose nearly 50-year career spans an impossibly broad range of genres. He is a well-known figure in the Japanese music scene, recognised for his crossover pop hits, film soundtrack work and a host of high-profile live commissions, installations and collaborations with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, Van Dyke Parks and David Cunningham. Shimizu’s music reached a wider audience in the West following the reissue on Palto Flats of his iconic 1982 solo album *Kakashi* and his band Mariah’s classic 1983 record *Utakata No Hibi* – masterful hybrids of Japanese folk and pop idioms filtered through a honed electronic/disco production aesthetic that make them sound fresher than ever today.

Shimizu embarked on his first North American tour in 2025, selling out every show. Don’t miss his stop at RUISKAMER, to witness his ever-evolving artistry.

Catharina Evens

Catharina Evens (b. 1997, Brussels) is a Belgian experimental electro-acoustic pianist who seeks an alternative sound palette for the acoustic piano. She does this, among other things, by manipulating acoustic sounds live via electronics and amplifying them to resonate through the piano’s entire soundboard and strings. The typical piano sound, which we usually associate with the acoustic piano, fades away, making way for a unique sonic universe whose various musical possibilities she further explores through improvisation and composition.

Through granular textures, playful capriciousness, compelling pianistic passages, naive phrases, percussive accents, piano preparations, rhythmic sequences and the exploration of the space between different musical genres, Catharina creates her own absurd sonic world full of narrative fragments.

Catharina Evens (b. 1997, Brussels) is a Belgian experimental electro-acoustic pianist who seeks to explore an alternative sonic palette for the acoustic piano. She achieves this, in part, by manipulating acoustic sounds live using electronics, amplifying them and allowing them to resonate through the piano’s entire soundboard and strings. The typical piano sound, which we usually associate with the acoustic piano, fades away, making way for a unique sonic universe whose various musical possibilities she further explores through improvisation and composition.

Using granular textures, playful capriciousness, compelling pianistic passages, naive phrases, percussive accents, piano preparations, rhythmic sequences and exploring the space between different musical genres, Catharina creates her own absurd world of sound, full of narrative fragments.

Students from the conservatories of Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp are bringing out their brass instruments under the baton of Luc Vertommen. Together, they will perform a programme featuring compositions by Walton, Dobson, Gregson and Mussorgsky.

Vertommen is a conductor, teacher and a passionate connoisseur of wind music, with a strong international reputation within the genre.

The Dutch newspaper NRC describes Hannes Minnaar’s piano playing as ‘free of pretence and bravado’; it is therefore no surprise that he is receiving widespread acclaim. His third prize at the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition marked the start of his international career. Since then, he has performed as a soloist with orchestras worldwide and collaborated with such illustrious names as Herbert Blomstedt, Marin Alsop, Eliahu Inbal and Philippe Herreweghe.

With his Van Baerle Trio, he specialises in Beethoven’s piano trios. Bach features prominently in his solo repertoire. Minnaar’s refined playing is perfectly suited to the master’s lucid compositional style. This connection with Bach’s work naturally leads him to Shostakovich as well, who modelled his 24 Preludes and Fugues on Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.

Will to Wander concerts bring together a classical soloist or duo — specifically selected by MIRY — with a second artist who formulates an artistic response to the same piece.

An-Sofie Perneel is a talented young violinist who is making a name for herself as a soloist and concertmaster with various national and international youth orchestras. Pianist Greet Steeman specialised in piano, chamber music and song accompaniment, studying at institutions including the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. As a piano accompanist and coach, she has worked with a wide range of ensembles and musicians, and she leads annual Suzuki music workshops for young players. Perneel and Kolacny delve into the musical world of Béla Bartók.

This struck a chord with pianist Rodrigo Evangelista, who, ever since he swapped Argentina for Belgium, has been searching for the sound of home. Once you’ve lived in two such completely different places, can you ever feel completely at home anywhere? Evangelista interprets the duality between the sounds of the past and the sounds of the present in a wholly unique way, on a piano that is just as fragmented as his sense of home.

Three powerful chords, followed by a brief round of introductions: this is how Haydn’s first string quartet, Opus 76, begins. The Karski Quartet pairs this landmark work with the lesser-known Fourth String Quartet by the Polish composer Bacewicz, a twentieth-century composer and violinist who displays tremendous vitality through her rhythmic precision and modern harmonies. Tradition and daring are key words in the Karski Quartet’s vocabulary. They are constantly seeking ways to connect the past with the present and to engage in dialogue not only with one another but also with the audience. This approach has earned them numerous awards. In 2018, for instance, they won the Grand Prix at the Triomphe de l’Art competition, and at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition, they were awarded the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize.

The young Susato Trio is joining forces with their mentor and seasoned veteran, violist Patrick Jüdt. He is a professor of viola, chamber music and contemporary music at the Bern University of the Arts and one of the artistic directors at ECMA (European Chamber Music Academy). As part of ECMA, the Susato Trio also performed at MIRY last month, alongside two other top ensembles.

In selecting their repertoire, the Susato Trio is always on the lookout for music that has, unintentionally or unjustly, been lost in the mists of time. They then juxtapose these pieces with better-known works. As a trio, this approach has already caught the attention of various competition juries on several occasions. For example, in 2024 they won both first prize and the audience prize at the Supernova competition organised by radio station Klara. They are now expanding to a piano quartet and have chosen, amongst other works, Mozart’s First Piano Quartet.

When friends share the stage, the result is guaranteed to be spectacular. This is demonstrated by Shirly Laub (violin), Tony Nys (viola) and Karel Steylaerts (cello), three leading figures from the Belgian classical music scene. Together they are known as TrioFenix and, with the ease characteristic of old friends, they blend their instruments into a harmonious whole. Not only do they have the classical repertoire at their fingertips, but they also relish taking on new challenges, for example in the form of surprising arrangements. This includes Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s arrangement of Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations. In the collective memory, the variations are inextricably linked with the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. However, TrioFenix also does full justice to them in this string trio version.

A dreamy arthouse vampire film from the early nineties—produced by David Lynch—receives a brand-new live score by ambient pop’s rising star, more eaze.

Drawing inspiration from Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and André Breton’s surrealist novel Nadja (1928), director Michael Almereyda’s acclaimed cult film follows the enigmatic vampire Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) as she returns to New York City to avenge her father Dracula’s death at the hands of Dr. Van Helsing, played by sixties screen icon Peter Fonda.

After Dracula’s death—represented by a repurposed shot of Bela Lugosi from the 1932 film White Zombie—Nadja arrives at a Manhattan morgue to collect his body. She slips effortlessly into the city’s nocturnal hipster scene, spending her nights drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, wandering downtown bars, and engaging in deadpan philosophical conversations. Meanwhile, the eccentric Dr. Van Helsing relentlessly pursues Dracula’s daughter through the streets of New York.

Visually, Nadja is as distinctive as its story. Almereyda combines luminous black-and-white 35mm cinematography with haunting Pixelvision footage shot on a Fisher-Price toy camera, creating a dreamlike, low-fi aesthetic unlike anything else. More interested in atmosphere than conventional horror, the film replaces gore and jump scares with melancholy, emotional unease, dry humour, and a hypnotic sense of mystery. It is as much a portrait of early 1990s downtown New York as it is a vampire film, evoking the worlds of Jim Jarmusch, Hal Hartley, and David Lynch.

Equally difficult to categorize is more eaze, the project of Brooklyn-based sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice. Blending ambient pop, folk, musique concrète, and experimental electronics, Maurice transforms everyday sounds and acoustic instrumentation into richly textured, emotionally resonant compositions. Exploring themes of intimacy, longing, memory, and transformation, more eaze has become one of the most exciting voices in contemporary experimental music, with releases on Thrill Jockey, Leaving Records, Longform Editions, Ecstatic, Orange Milk, and 15 Love. As a string arranger, pedal steel player, and producer, Maurice has also collaborated with artists including Claire Rousay, Lomelda, Space Afrika, Martha Skye Murphy, Water Damage, Fashion Club, Rainy Miller, and Nick Zanca.

For Videodroom, more eaze brings a new musical interpretation to this haunting cult classic, creating a unique encounter between adventurous cinema and contemporary experimental sound.

The rajazz theory offers a new way of organising the structure of musical material. It aims to combine the modal approach of Indian ragas with the tendency towards modulation that is characteristic of tonal music.

Ensemble Fractales, based in Brussels, was founded out of a shared desire to promote and explore new musical repertoires. The ensemble — comprising flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano — specialises in performing a wide range of contemporary music.

“Hände ohne Orte” — this programme follows four starkly contrasting paths through a shared instrumental landscape.

This project brings together the various areas of research that Manuel Hermia has been exploring in recent years. Firstly, all the compositions are essentially inspired by the rajazz system. Secondly, the aim is to strike a balance between the rigid structure of the written parts and the entirely improvised passages, as well as between acoustic and electronic sounds, and between melodic-harmonic material and non-idiomatic sound textures.

Finally, the quest for spiritual depth and rhythmic trances converge in the pursuit of an intensity that is at once raw, honest, committed and wild.

This project brings together the various areas of research that Manuel Hermia has been exploring in recent years. Firstly, all the compositions are essentially inspired by the rajazz system. Secondly, the aim is to strike a balance between the rigid structure of the written parts and the entirely improvised passages, as well as between acoustic and electronic sounds, and between melodic-harmonic material and non-idiomatic sound textures.

Finally, the quest for spiritual depth and rhythmic trances converge in the pursuit of an intensity that is at once raw, honest, committed and wild.