Operaproject Dido and Aeneas

Will to Wander concerts bring together a classical soloist or a duo — specifically selected by MIRY — with a second artist who formulates an artistic response to the same piece. When one hears the term ‘cello suites’, J.S. Bach immediately springs to mind, but Benjamin Britten also wrote three. He dedicated them to one of the most important cellists of the last century, Mstislav Rostropovich. The Belgian Pierre Fontenelle chose the first and third suites for his performance at the MIRY Concert Hall. For a time, he was the principal cellist with the orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, before embarking on a career as a soloist and chamber musician.

In his ‘Will to Wander’ response, Ali Choupani Nejad deconstructs Britten’s First Suite and uses the material to construct a new reality, in which repetition provides an auditory anchor within an otherwise thoroughly jumbled framework. His musical language has been shaped, amongst other things, by his Persian roots, his fascination with contemporary playing techniques, and the role that improvisation and the human body play in his life.

Lucien Goethals and SPECTRA: a match made in heaven. The ensemble owes not only its name but also its musical DNA to this leading figure of post-war Belgian classical music. Twenty years after Goethals’s death, SPECTRA is paying him yet another special tribute, together with the rising stars of Duo Obscura. Freshly graduated from KASK & Conservatorium and ready to take the world’s stages by storm, they have chosen the rarely performed Sonata for Violin and Piano by Goethals’ fellow pioneer in electronic music, Karel Goeyvaerts, and Goethals’ Endomorfie I, in which acoustic and electronic sounds are tastefully interwoven. SPECTRA continues with Goethals’ Gilgamesh, based on the eponymous four-thousand-year-old epic about a demigod from Mesopotamia, and his Concierto de la luz y las tinieblas, which he wrote for the organ at the MIRY Concert Hall.

Ruiskamer and Different Class are organising an evening programme centred on the Liège-based audiovisual artist François Boulanger, also known as ssaliva. Under that name, he has been creating hypnotic and ethereal soundscapes since 2011. Especially for this Ruiskamer event, he is collaborating with his partner in crime, 0comeups, to compose a piece of electro-acoustic music that will be performed by GAME. In addition, 0comeups will perform a live set of their own. ssaliva himself will present an audiovisual spectacle alongside London-based sound and video artist Nicola Tirabasso (VISIO).

ssaliva

François Boulanger is an audiovisual artist born in Liège, Belgium in 1983. He started producing music and photography/collages by the end of the 90’s/early 2000.
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In 2011, he started his experimental project « ssaliva ». After working for years as Cupp Cave on alternative hip-hop and dance beats, he developed hypnotic soundscapes based on sparse rhythms, lush tones and crystallised textures. A personal and romantic rendition of a life amidst nature and city pollution.

His work as ssaliva also consists of documenting equally ethereal and removed places in pictures, two compulsive and lonely processes that have made him accumulate thousands of strange, escapist mental landscapes. Sometimes ghostly, sometimes sacred, an instantly recognizable form of melancholia.

0comeups

0comeups’ work has been described as epic collage: expansive, densely layered compositions suspended somewhere between sound art and memory. His music inhabits an emotional space that feels almost holy, evoking nostalgia and solitude, shaped by grey skies and tower blocks, fields and woodlands, isolation and melancholy. Songs unfold as shifting landscapes, revealing new details with every encounter as unrest gives way to moments of elevated repose.

VISIO

VISIO is the alias of London-based musician and visual artist Nicola Tirabasso. Working across sound, moving image and visual composition, his practice investigates the arcane boundaries between reality and the inexplicable. Drawing from fictional imaginaries, folk symbolism, internet mythologies and antiquarian visual culture, he constructs fragmented worlds where deliberate anachronism and inauthenticity become tools to question memory, authenticity and contemporary narratives.

Since becoming an integral part of the Macao collective in Milan, Tirabasso has played an active role in independent cultural production, later founding the London-based initiatives Nocturnal Reflections and Club Mutante. Over the years he has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning live performance, installation, film and graphic design, collaborating with artists including ssaliva, Heith, Penny Rimbaud, Rustan Söderling and Günseli Yalcinkaya.

In 2022, VISIO released his debut LP Privacy Angels via Haunter Records, an album exploring mythological narratives, digital spirituality and fractured memory through experimental song structures and immersive sound design. In 2024 he presented the solo exhibition Fools Circel 9wys in Milan, curated by Threes and featuring the participation of Penny Rimbaud. In 2026 he released Trickstar, a collaborative audiovisual work with ssaliva, accompanied by a video by Noel Oplinger.

His work has been presented internationally through exhibitions, screenings and performances at venues and institutions including the ICA, South London Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, Lafayette Anticipations, Swiss Institute, Club To Club, Cripta747, Spazio Maiocchi, Fondazione Elpis and Neo Shibuya. In 2025 he joined the roster of SHAPE+ Platform.

Alongside his artistic practice, Tirabasso develops publications, visual identities and collaborative projects for artists, labels and cultural institutions including AD93, 4AD, PAN, Halcyon Veil, Editions Mego, Centre Pompidou, Empty Gallery, Pitchfork, Versace, LOST Festival, VTSS and Slam Jam.

Dmitry Smirnov is one of the most remarkable violinists of his generation. He switches with apparent ease between Baroque and contemporary repertoire. His list of awards is nothing short of impressive, including second prizes at the International Yehudi Menuhin Competition (2008) and the ARD Music Competition (2021), as well as a first prize at, amongst others, the Concours d’Interprétation Musicale de Lausanne (2017). His appearance at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2024 caused a stir when, quite unexpectedly, he was knocked out in the semi-finals following an idiosyncratic Mozart concerto and an unparalleled solo sonata by Bartók, which is also on tonight’s programme. With a supple yet precise left hand and dazzling bow control, Smirnov places himself entirely at the service of the music, which he brings to life with unrivalled expressiveness.

With Natalie Lewis and Brian Zeger, two giants of the vocal world are coming to Ghent. Lewis, an American mezzo-soprano, is a member of the ensemble at the Bavarian State Opera and is at the start of what can be described as a promising career. Later this season, she has concerts planned with Zubin Mehta and Kirill Petrenko, and will appear as a soloist with, amongst others, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

Brian Zeger is widely acclaimed as a lieder accompanist and is the artistic director of the Marcus Vocal Arts department at Juilliard.

The American background of both performers becomes evident in the second half of the concert, featuring a number of spirituals and works by Price. The first half, by contrast, focuses on European Romanticism, with Brahms, Wagner and Mahler.

The harp, one of the oldest instruments in the world, is far from having run its course, and Stef Van Vynckt has played no small part in this. Through his frequent collaborations with composers, he is systematically expanding the harp repertoire. This takes him to the world’s finest concert halls and festivals, such as the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival in New York.

In his recent project Forever – is composed of Nows, Van Vynckt observes that ‘forever’ is not something that lies unattainably far in the future, but rather consists of a succession of moments. At a time when our attention span is deteriorating at an alarming rate and people are desperately trying to live in the present, Van Vynck offers a solution: a performance in which time expands and the sounds continue to reverberate – who knows, perhaps forever.

For this co-production with Ars Musica, soprano Juliet Fraser and violinist Hannah Weirich drew inspiration from the seemingly endless variety of birds of paradise that inhabit the forests of Papua New Guinea and Australia. As if the names of these little creatures weren’t magical enough, it is also said that they never touch the ground. The males adorn themselves with a sense of style and drama in veils, capes and fans, and often have beautifully coloured plumage. Apart from their appearance, they are also excellent songbirds. All this beauty inspired Kristine Tjøgersen to write The Shape-Shifters, with the voice and the violin taking on the role of birds of paradise. Fraser and Weirich add atmospheric soundscapes by Helge Sten (aka Deathprod) and a composition by Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir.

During KASK & Conservatorium’s project week, the clarinet classical music students work alongside students of composition and jazz and pop music. A composition student is writing a new piece for the KASK & Conservatorium Clarinet Choir.

PROVERBS presents four minimalist masterpieces from the 20th century, chosen for their introspective quality. Tehillim (1981), Steve Reich’s definitive masterpiece, forms the centrepiece of the evening.

At the other end of the spectrum, Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic (1972) gives a different meaning to the word ‘minimalism’.

This concert is conceived as a poetic and quasi-narrative experience. Carefully lit, amplified and mixed in quadraphonic sound. It begins with the ‘instrumental theatre’ of Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question (1908) and features, as an interlude, Steve Reich’s Proverb from 1995 — a gem of simplicity and unerring expression.

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. Last year, Jef Kolacny was one of Klara’s ‘Twintigers’, a quality label for top young talent. That he fits this description became clear in 2022, when he won the Cantabile Piano Competition. 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.

For more than twenty years, keyboardists Nicolas Callot and Bart Rodyns have been friends and have shared a love of historical keyboard instruments. As Duo Zeitspiel, in their latest project centred on the music of Felix Mendelssohn, they have once again opted for the unusual combination of piano and harmonium, following on from a Bach album featuring the same instruments. The link between Bach and Mendelssohn is strong: it was Mendelssohn who brought Bach’s work back into the spotlight after a period of obscurity.

What works for Bach also proves to work for Mendelssohn. The symbiotic interplay between Callot and Rodyns emphasises just how well the piano and the harmonium complement each other. The harmonium’s bass notes lend the piano an unprecedented depth, whilst the melody rises effortlessly yet subtly above the whole.

During Videodroom, we will be screening ‘The Last Movie’ – Dennis Hopper’s radical, mythologised and long-lost masterpiece – which has been virtually unseen for almost 50 years – accompanied by a brand-new live score by composer Alex Zhang Hungtai (Dirty Beaches).

*The Last Movie* is a deliberately self-reflective film, co-written by New Hollywood legend Dennis Hopper and *Rebel Without a Cause* screenwriter Stewart Stern. The film follows a Hollywood film crew in the midst of shooting a Western in a remote Peruvian village. When production wraps, Hopper – in the role of the tormented stuntman Kansas – stays behind. He tries to find redemption in isolated Peru and in the arms of a former sex worker. Meanwhile, the local indigenous people have taken over the abandoned set. They begin to stage a ritual re-enactment of the film production – with Kansas as their sacrificial lamb.

A notorious production

The film is regarded as one of the most legendary productions of the New Hollywood era. Following the massive commercial success of *Easy Rider* — made for just $40,000 and grossing $60 million! — Hopper was given carte blanche by Universal for his next directorial project. The director, writer and lead actor took the money and ran with it – literally. He shot *The Last Movie* in Peru, as far away from the Hollywood machine as possible.

In his wake travelled an impressive cast, including Kris Kristofferson, Julie Adams, Stella Garcia, Peter Fonda, Dean Stockwell, Toni Basil, Russ Tamblyn, Michelle Phillips and director Samuel Fuller. Fuelled by cocaine, LSD and sheer bravado, the result is a sometimes frustrating but always compelling deconstruction of filmmaking. The film tackles Western colonialism and is full of hallucinatory imagery.

Although the film won a special prize at the Venice Film Festival, *The Last Movie* effectively brought Hopper’s career to an end for years; the Hollywood establishment was only too happy to write him off as an eccentric madman. Yet the film remains thrillingly innovative and remarkably contemporary – heavily influenced by the work of Bruce Conner, the French Nouvelle Vague, and the pop art and abstract artists whom Hopper so admired.

About Alex Zhang Hungtai

Alex Zhang Hungtai is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses on improvisation and the connection to the subconscious. Having brought his Dirty Beaches project to a close, Zhang has devoted himself to exploring improvised music, free jazz and his role as a composer. His more recent compositions rely primarily on the saxophone and drums, with forays into electronic music.

In addition to his solo work, he has previously collaborated with artists such as Tashi Dorji, Che Chen, Chris Williams, Sam Shalabi, David Maranha, Gabriel Ferrandini and Viernulvier resident artist Joshua Serafin. Zhang is currently active as a composer of film soundtracks and acts in independent films.