The Ghent music center De Bijloke organizes two festivals each year, Côté Jardin in June and the multi-day festival Wonderland at the end of August: concerts and events throughout the Bijloke site, outdoors in a tent, in a large concert hall and in the Kraakhuis.
Bring your own picnic! it says in the announcement. Not just a musical event, it is also a social happening for young and old. An older audience and also young parents with toddlers and young children who enter the concert hall.
Crazy bunch
It starts at 11 o'clock in the tent with the orchestra de Ledebirds from the Ghent suburb Ledeberg. This crazy bunch is an eccentric ensemble with string, wind and percussion instruments under the direction of clarinetist Mattias Laga. They play world music, often pieces from the Balkans. Pieces, not compositions. A motif is sometimes endlessly repeated in these pieces, songs and litanies in different arrangements. Once the Ledebirds set sail it can take a while …
At Côté Jardin they performed together with composer and arranger Dirk van der Harst. He has earned his stripes as a musical jack-of-all-trades, and fits the Ledebirds like a lid on a pot. On their violins, flutes, clarinets, drums the Ledebirds play and sing into the meadow in the highest of spirits. Mattias Laga is a passionate leader, with his clarinet he fires up his troops. The Ledebirds are also a social project, a low-threshold initiative to bring musicians together and give the multicultural Ledeberg a voice.
One symphony, four conductors.
At 12.30 there is the central event at Côté Jardin, as far as classical music is concerned. The Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen performs Beethoven's Sixth in the large concert hall. The Pastoral, a nod to the meadow and the musical picnic, as Côté Jardin is also presented. No fewer than four conductors take the stage. Not simultaneously, but per movement of the symphony.
They had a week of conducting lessons from German maestro Christian Ehwald. In turn, British Tess Jackson, Italian Giovanni Fanizza, Venezuelan Elvis Pérez and German Friedrich Praetorius take the stage. They extract what is in the orchestra, a noble, tight, sometimes rather thin sound from the strings, which sounds fuller in better concert halls. In this medieval hospital, the oldest but by no means best concert hall in the world, it sometimes sounds as sparse as a madrigal …
The orchestra plays in the so-called Vienna seating arrangement, with the second violins not next to but directly opposite the first violins. High above us we see the wooden vault from the thirteenth century. An inverted ship's hull, I think when in the first movement it rocks as if in a boat. Also with the Venezuelan Pérez I hear surprising crescendi in the scherzo. Not only his Third or Fifth, Beethoven's Sixth symphony must have sounded quite shocking in his time. With this young talent and their batons it comes across very well. I leave the hall with a lovely pastoral feeling, ready to count my sheep in the meadow.
In the afternoon that meadow is well filled. Tables and chairs are everywhere, people are toasting and eating, laughing and dancing. There are different bars on the site, but many bring a cooler. There is a relaxed, exuberant atmosphere. There are also performances for children, the flying carpet of Le Contrevent or street theater Kagoels.
Voices on, next to, behind and above the stage
Then it is time for opera, for five singers from the IOA (International Opera Academy), which is based at the Bijloke site. They sing Italian arias and recitatives from Händel to Puccini. Five women and one man, accompanied by two pianists. Baritone Alexander Van Goethem and sopranos Klara Vermeer and Marjolein Appermont share the stage with their foreign colleagues Lucy Gibbs (UK), Marianna Giulio (Italy) and Mathilda Sidén Silfver (Sweden).
They sing together in surprising stagings where they stand singing not only on, but sometimes next to, behind and on the choir benches above the stage. Today not the usual concert audience in the hall, also quite a few young families. Behind me I hear a squeal, toddlers don't realize how their little voice breaks the silence.
Opera is not just singing, it is also acting. Opera is not just music, it is a story about life. Love, hope, hatred and envy, we get the whole range in a delightful hour. With their voices formed and trained at the Academy, they fill the mighty hall. Golden voices of the jeunesse dorée !
Ordinary Ghenters
Côté Jardin is not just classical, it is also jazz, folk and world music. And there is also room for an experiment, out of the box. In the Kraakhuis, the small concert hall of De Bijloke, there are two performances of Petites Histoires today. The announcement says "Ordinary Ghenters sing their special 'Petites histoires' together with B'Rock musicians and Paul Griffiths'. Those ordinary Ghenters are citizens from poverty who sing out their fate, their worries, their anger in their own written verses. Sung in choir and sometimes also individually, spoken and called out:
"We are Ghent. We are the people of Ghent. We are giants, dragons, buffalo's. Our memories are bittersweet".
"We are rebels fighting against the system, fleeing our past and seeking the sunrise".
"We are fighters, dreamers, stubborn and resilient".
Fighters against the system
Actually, these are not 'petites histoires', these are great stories of courageous people who cannot make ends meet at the end of the month. People who live in the shadows of society, who never shine on the stages. In this project they get to shine in the Kraakhuis, accompanied by three top musicians with baroque instruments, under the direction of guitarist Paul Griffiths.
What a wonderful initiative. Although of course we must not forget that "our system", which they are fighting against, is a system with excellent social security. Previous generations also fought for that. We are all citizens of a city and a country where wealth is redistributed fairly. A country where there are safety nets for the unemployed, where there are insurances and help for the weak and the sick. But I was not allowed to say that to those ordinary Gentenaren.