Open call: Will to Wander

Our classical music students hone their skills until they are ready for their exam recitals. You can attend this joyous occassion, as the exam concerts of master’s students of classical music and composition are open to the public. Postgraduates musical performance practice will also spoil your ears. All concerts take place in our very own MIRY Concert Hall.

Cydonia Barocca is returning to Ghent for the ninth consecutive year. Each edition of this baroque music festival highlights a different instrument. This time, the oboe is in the spotlight. Join us for an unforgettable Whitsun weekend filled with Bach, Telemann and Graupner, with performances from some of the world’s best oboists. During the afternoon and evening concerts, as well as the numerous workshops and lectures, you will discover the impact that these composers have had on the oboe repertoire, with the soloists being accompanied by skilled string players, wind players, singers and harpsichordists. Just as the festival focuses on lesser-known musical works, it also aims to surprise visitors with culinary delights at Bar Cydonia. As always, the quince, the symbol of Cydonia Barocca, will play a starring role here.

For this concert, Marlies Cornelis and Suzan Peeters are giving free rein to their creativity, performing as a duo for the first time. Peeters, with her background in live electronics, promises a surprising approach to the already versatile accordion. In October 2025, she released her debut album, Cassotto, on the Belgian label blickwinkel — an adventurous road trip. The title refers to a resonance chamber in the accordion which gives its tone warmth, softness and depth.

Marlies Cornelis is open about her love of contemporary work and experimentation. For her graduation project, Twenty Something (f.), she focused on young female composers. She is currently working on a new solo project called The Untempered Pianist (f.), in which she breaks down the boundaries of conventional concert practice and challenges the traditional tuning of the piano.

SPECTRA will celebrate the 100th birthday of Hungarian composer György Kurtág on 19 February 2026 with a concert dedicated entirely to his music. Kurtág’s music is stripped of all excess; not a single note is superfluous. This tribute concert will therefore focus on his Signs, Games and Messages, a collection of short pieces. The nature of a collection is that it is never complete. SPECTRA has curated a selection, placing Kurtág alongside some of his musical heroes, including Bach, Webern, Bartók and Kodály, as well as 21st -century composers who have been influenced by him. The evening begins and ends with the aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Throughout the concert, you will see SPECTRA perform in a variety of combinations, from solo to quartet.

For John Luther Adams, music encompasses more than just rhythm, harmony, melody and timbre. His compositions are veritable soundscapes and intriguing sonic worlds in which listeners can lose themselves entirely. Kaja Farszky selected four movements from his monumental work, The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies, in which Adams explores the rich potential of percussion instruments such as cymbals, tam-tams and snare drums, whose resonances often call to mind choral music.

Taking Adams’ ideas of resonance and music as their inspiration, Cedric Haeck and Ine Garré set to work. All they need are double basses and their own bodies. Through improvisation, they explore the boundary between music and dance and how tangible or fluid it is. After all, anything or anyone can be a resonating body.

One of the most idiosyncratic bands in the southern hemisphere, The Necks, is coming to Ghent. The Australian trio has spent eighteen albums working on its unique sound. Their long, deceptively simple songs have always been their trademark, but on their latest album, Chris Abrahams (piano), Tony Buck (drums) and Lloyd Swanton (bass) seem to have suspended time completely. The mesmerising atmosphere they create is weightless and timeless.

Add to that the Brussels trio Going (João Lobo, Giovanni Di Domenico and Pak Yan Lau), as well as Japanese drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, and the result is a heady mix. The occasional quartet with double drums guarantees rhythmic fireworks. Pak Yan Lau from Going will open the evening by engaging in a musical dialogue with the GAME ensemble.

Anna Alvizou and Timothy Veryser present a concert featuring music by Schubert, Copland, Wolf and Barber. Although Veryser discovered his passion for music at an early age, he only chose to attend the Conservatory of Ghent after completing his studies in Global Business Management, where he studied with Cristiane Stotijn and Hendrickje Van Kerckhove. Since graduating, Veryser has performed as a highly regarded tenor in many European opera houses, regularly appearing in productions by La Monnaie and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.

He joins forces with Anna Alvizou, a dedicated song accompanist. She trained at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen and the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, among others. She also works as a researcher with Prof. Kathleen Gyssels at the University of Antwerp.

The young Italian Mattia Fusi is one of the most interesting pianists of his generation. Having studied in Trieste and Cologne, he has won numerous prizes. He has a particular fondness for contemporary compositions and is dedicated to reviving the music of Giampaolo Coral. However, Bach also plays a central role in his career. He has chosen the third and fourth partitas, each of which consists of seven movements often inspired by dance. Surprisingly, he concludes with Samuel Barber’s piano sonata. Composed partly during Barber’s time in Rome, this post-war work was premiered by Vladimir Horowitz in 1949 and was an instant success. Considered one of Barber’s most important works, it is a cornerstone of 20^th-century American classical music.

We cannot imagine a better interpreter of Schubert’s music than the Alinde Quartet — they even named themselves after one of his compositions! A few years ago, the quartet embarked on an ambitious project to record all of Schubert’s string quartet works between 2020 and 2028, the 200th anniversary of his death. So far, they have released four albums, with the latest appearing in autumn 2025. Their balanced, warm performances have received widespread critical acclaim, but judge for yourself. The Alinde Quartet performs Schubert’s youthful Overture and his dramatic Fifteenth String Quartet, written half a lifetime later. They complement these pieces with works by the Rotterdam-born composer John Borstlap and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s Miserere mei.

Although Raphaël Feuillâtre is relatively unknown to the general public, he is one of the most acclaimed classical guitarists around today. The young Frenchman won the Guitar Foundation of America Competition in 2018, and ADAMI named him “Classical Revelation” in 2021. He is indeed a revelation. This was followed by a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2022, resulting in two highly acclaimed albums: Visages Baroques and Spanish Serenades. Through his own arrangements, he is expanding the classical guitar repertoire in his own way. Music for piano and harpsichord particularly attracts his attention, as is evident from his choice of programme for MIRY. His fresh approach and sparkling virtuosity do justice to Bach and Piazzolla alike, proving that the guitar is one of the most versatile instruments in the world.

Igor Stravinsky wrote the music for the ballet Petrushka in 1911 and later arranged it for orchestra. The story bears some resemblance to Pinocchio: a puppet comes to life and develops its own emotional world.

This four-handed performance features no dancing or orchestra but two excellent pianists: Emmy Wils and Piet Kuijken. The former was once the latter’s student, and now they sit together at the keyboard, pulling the strings of Petrushka and the other fairground puppets.

Opposite them sit the piano duo Croene and Cornelis. They perform Petrushka in their own unique way, questioning the balance of power: who is playing whom? Who follows and who leads? Is playing four-handed on one piano as symbiotic as it seems?

Double bill with TLF Trio, mixing improvisation, sampling and electronic beats with classical chamber music, minimalism, pop and house; and the mysterious Dylan Henner with his characteristic use of ambient-tinged synths, marimba, digital choir and processed voice.

TLF Trio
TLF Trio is an experimental music ensemble consisting of cellist Cæcilie Trier, pianist Jakob Littauer and guitarist MK Velsorf.They released their first album, Sweet Harmony, on the French electronic and experimental label Latency in 2022 and an EP, New Songs & Variations, with new material and reworks by German techno pioneer Moritz von Oswald on Latency in 2023. 2025 saw their sophomore full-length album, Desire, come out via 15 love on September 4.

Dylan Henner
Dylan Henner remains a somewhat mysterious figure within the ambient scene. Since his debut in 2020 — via cassette releases on labels such as Phantom Limb, Dauw and AD93 — he has mainly let his music do the talking. He avoids public promotion, but his disarmingly poetic titles betray a sharp imagination. His debut album, The Invention of the Human, explores big questions about humanity, civilisation and technology. In the follow-up, You Always Will Be (2022), Henner sketches the entire course of life, from birth to death. His latest work, Star Dream FM, is an experimental ambient album peppered with choral singing that sounds like a mysterious radio broadcast full of childhood memories.

GAME (Rodrigo Evangelista, Siyi Xia)
Rodrigo Evangelista (piano) and Siyi Xia (violin) will set the evening in motion with Philip Glass's Sonata for violin and piano. Glass, a key figure in minimalism, pioneered a style based on repetition, steady rhythms, and gradual transformation. His music evolves slowly, allowing subtle changes to hold significant meaning. The piece was finished in 2008, and was commissioned by retired architect Martin Murray to commemorate the 70th birthday of his wife, Lucy Miller Murray. The piece follows three movements. It has a rhythmic pulse and transparent textures that reveal a lyrical, expressive side. The dialogue between violin and piano creates an evolving sound world, where subtle changes shape continuous motion and emotional depth.

How should you approach an instrument for which an enormous repertoire already exists? This was the starting point for some of the composers featured in Brecht Valckenaers’s latest project. In his Musica Ricercata, a collection of eleven short pieces, György Ligeti experiments with simple structures, rhythms, and sounds. Starting with just two notes, he adds one more for each new piece until eventually all the notes from the twelve-tone series have been heard. His aim was to step out of Bartók’s shadow. However, he never quite managed to break free.

Valckenaers combines this Ligeti piece with works by Lachenmann, Cowell, Kurtág, Crumb and Bartók, as well as adding a few of his own compositions.

Ligeti and his contemporaries are presented in true relay style, blurring the boundaries between the composers.

During this project week, singing and instrumental students from the classical music department collaborate with their peers from other programmes. Together, they will create their own version of Rameau’s opera Pigmalion. The story of Pigmalion, the sculptor from Greek mythology who fell in love with the marble statue he carved, has often been a source of inspiration in music and literature, perhaps most famously in the musical My Fair Lady. Rameau wrote his one-act opera some two hundred years earlier.

You can discover whether the students will fall in love with their own creation this week, just like Pigmalion, during one of the performances on Saturday and Sunday. Conductor Bart Naessens is in charge of the musical direction. Marijke Pinoy is responsible for the direction.

Credits:

• Pigmalion: Vahe Harutyunyan, Aixin Zhu
• La Statue: Elise Marmad
• Céphise: Réka Gacs
• L'Amour: Xiaoxi Zhan
• Hébé: Joy Gonnissen
• Fatime: Marjolein Acke, Yifei Cai
• Nérine: Rongye Pu
• Lesbacchantes: Lisanne Van der Steeg, Marlies Van Oost, Roos verschooten,
  Eleanor McMullan, Joren Basyn, Mateo Coltura, Leo Vanderstraeten,
• orchestra: Zhuoyu Xu, Alessandro Arieti, Pasquale Picone, Jeong Yun Lee, Ludovica Mastrostefano, Isabel Martín Grilo, Erza Mehmeti, Carmen Pérez Bartivas, Marta Boschis, Arne Somers, Esteve Ticó Rodriguez, Chensong Sun, Zoé Balon, Esther Fernández González, Jiongling Zhao, Guillermo Garcia Trueba, Rocio Gonzales, Ella Baert, El Gevers, Xander Monteyne, Wannes Van de Velde, Arne Van Handenhoven
  
• production: Janne Vanhaecke, Merlijn Willems, Chloé Van den Hende, Donna Kok, Junior Nicolau Vita, Emma Van Bogaert, Rob Lelièvre, Julian Oswiecinski, Clémence Ledent, Marianne Van Caekenberghe

KASK & Conservatorium’s wind orchestra, conducted by Michel Tilkin, will perform a programme featuring Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques and Otto Ketting’s Time Machine. This piece for woodwind and percussion was written in 1972 for the Netherlands Wind Ensemble. The concert will conclude with Modest Mussorgsky’s world-famous Pictures at an Exhibition.

The students from the advanced master in contemporary music will present the results of a week-long workshop led by the multidisciplinary musician Sarah Wéry. The instrumental music, storytelling and sound installations may well blend together organically.

A valued ensemble in the Belgian classical music scene and far beyond: Het Collectief. Since its founding in 1998, the ensemble has connected the music of the Second Viennese School and modernism with today’s classical music. Tonight, they do so once again, with Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat and Alban Berg’s Adagio aus dem Kammerkonzert. Galina Ustvolskaya also joins the table. In the second half, we step into the 21st century with Bram Van Camp’s Music for 3 Instruments from 2010, accompanied by works by Charles Ives and Béla Bartók. The newest piece on the program is undoubtedly by Ata Öz, composition student at KASK & Conservatorium, who has written a world premiere especially for this evening.

Opus 13 is a rising star on the string quartet scene. This past spring, they won both the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. Their name refers to the very first string quartet they played together: the String Quartet in A minor, Op. 13 by Felix Mendelssohn. In addition, the members of Opus 13 proudly embrace their northern roots. The feeling is clearly mutual: in 2023, the quartet received the prestigious Norwegian Equinor Classical Music Award, following in the footsteps of musical luminaries such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Lise Davidsen, and Vilde Frang. Expect a Scandinavian musical feast tonight with works by Stenhammar, Byström, and Grieg.

Humans have been traveling for as long as they have existed— for pleasure, out of necessity, to escape, or to reach something. Duo Bel Ayre playfully explores this Will to Wander. Where does this urge to travel come from? And why are we still subject to it today? Is it the drive toward the unknown, or the hope for a better future? Who are the travelers we encounter along the way, and what stories do they carry with them? Lieselot De Wilde (voice, tenorbanjo, barrel organ) and Peter Verhelst (guitar, oud) seek answers through songs from all corners of the world, following in the footsteps of troubadours and other traveling musicians.

Join this musical journey and let yourself be carried along—on the back of a Sicilian horse-drawn cart or on foot—from Antwerp all the way to the Black Sea. Elena Olga Groppo and Emiliano Cedillo feel completely at home in adventure and discovery: they combine contemporary music with—yes, you read that correctly—circus. Together, they create an artistic response full of acrobatics, musical or otherwise.

Students from the instrumental, chamber music and vocal classes at KASK & Conservatorium present the resounding results of their work over the past few months. We group this young, talented force under the name Springsounds.