Twice a year, day and night on our planet last equally long. The spring equinox is bathed in symbolism and spirituality and is also a key moment in different calendars: the Persian New Year, also known as Novruz, the national Indian New Year, the Jewish and Christian Easter festival... BOZAR and Klarafestival seize the occasion with an entire weekend dedicated to sacred music from diverse cultures. From the chants of Hildegard von Bingen and Persian Sufi music, to Indian ragas and Corsican polyphony to Finnish folk songs and jazz improvisation. Celebrate the equinox with timeless meditative moments.
B'Rock & Muziektheater Transparant - Passio
Easter takes place each year on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. For this Christian spring ritual, Muziektheater Transparant and B'Rock present the rarely performed St. John Passion by Alessandro Scarlatti. Director Luigi de Angelis adds a visual component: a video installation that hovers between a Baroque still life and a contemporary documentary. With films by Pasolini among others as inspiration, the question arises here: why is suffering such a popular subject in the arts? Are we merely consumers of others' pain or is there truly room for compassion?
Homayoun Shajarian
In Iran, the spring equinox marks 'Noroez', a Persian New Year festival. This tradition is some 5,000 years old and has recently been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage. Klarafestival and BOZAR invite for the occasion Iran's most renowned singer: the Tehran-born singer Homayoun Shajarian has an equally great passion for Iranian classical music as for pop and rock music. Homayoun Shajarian received his training not only at the Tehran Conservatory, but especially from his father Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, a master singer in the world of Persian traditional music with whom he toured for a long time as a tombak player and singer. In 2003, Homayoun Shajarian released his first solo album and by now his discography includes around twenty CDs. His music is particularly sophisticated and highly emotional.
Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola - ÆR
The Dutch-Finnish trio Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola immerses the listener in an esoteric and timeless sound bath. With viola da gamba, medieval harp, the human voice and electronic sound effects, they interweave Finnish folk songs and medieval music with jazz and contemporary compositions. At Klarafestival, they present a selection from their debut album ÆR, which connects the spiritual songs of the 12th-century composer and mystic Hildegard of Bingen with 13th-century pilgrimage songs, Gregorian chants and newly created work. They also lift the veil on their very latest, yet-to-be-released album, in which they perform music from a distant past with their own improvisations.
Pandit Nayan Ghosh - Morning Raga
Pandit Nayan Ghosh is a phenomenon. The legendary Ravi Shankar called him one of the greatest Indian musicians of all time. Particularly remarkable is the fact that Pandit Nayan Ghosh can masterfully play both the tabla and the sitar – two very different instruments. Together with his son Ishaan (also a tabla virtuoso) and his group ARAJ, Pandit Nayan Ghosh performs on the occasion of the equinox a morning raga in which both classical Indian repertoire and more modern styles of Indian music are featured.
A Filetta, Paolo Fresu & Daniele Di Bonaventura - Danse Mémoire, Danse
With a homogeneous mix of heritage and experiment, the voices of A Filetta explore Corsican polyphony from their homeland and interweave it with other genres and musical traditions. At Klarafestival they forge a dialogue with virtuoso bandoneon player Daniele di Bonaventura and jazz trumpeter Paolo Fresu. Together they test the boundaries of their instruments in imaginative solos and enchanting duets. From this cross-pollination also emerges a literary encounter between two inspiring thinkers from the past century: the French-Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire and the Corsican resistance fighter Jean Nicoli.
Equinox - Sacred Music Weekend
Two days dedicated to spiritual music
19 - 20 March 2022
More info