The Hainaut Musical Festival 2023

From 30 September to 13 October, the Festival Musical du Hainaut 2023 takes place in Mons and Charleroi. This final part of Les Festivals de Wallonie is organized by the cultural centers of the four major cities in the province; one year it is Mons and Charleroi's turn, and the other year Tournai and La Louvière have their turn. The overarching theme this year is 'Utopia' but each partner sets its own accents; there is mainly chamber music and new works to be heard at Arsonic in Mons and international stars at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (PBA) in Charleroi. Look forward to interdisciplinary concerts such as the not-to-be-missed family show Madame Vitesse. The program is also full of moving and contemplative pieces such as La Machine à remonter Mons and La Terre nous est étroite. Of course, festival artist Beatrice Berrut is also involved with some of her own compositions. Jean-Paul Dessy, cellist, composer, conductor and artistic director of Arsonic, has put together an original program in Mons with great love for tradition and attention to the musical memory of his 'adopted city'. "During the Renaissance, Hainaut, and Mons in particular, was a true cultural center at European level. The composers Roland de Lassus and Gilles Binchois were born here. But even now, the Mons Conservatory is known for the quality of its education and no fewer than two ensembles have established themselves in our city," he argues. In Charleroi, Frédéric Delcroix, artistic advisor for classical music and jazz at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, is mainly fascinated by the revival the city has undergone over the past ten years. "Charleroi reminds me of Brussels in the nineties," says Delcroix. "It is a city full of possibilities."

Mons in the spotlight

Arsonic's programming departs from the idea of presenting music that one would not easily encounter outside the festival, as if Arsonic itself were the utopia. The first chamber music work La Machine à remonter Mons returns to a place that no longer exists. Mons photographer Pierre Liebaert collected hundred-year-old postcards of the city and created a contemporary remake of them. Old and new images meet in a mesmerizing video montage and are provided with a meditative soundtrack that is created and performed live by musicians from the Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. Amidst all that visual and auditory intensity, the city of Mons shines as the actual soloist... (02.10, 7 pm and 9 pm). La Terre nous est étroite is a project set up by clarinetist Philippe Saucez based on stories from refugee students he met at UMONS. Jean-Marie Rens set their cruel – and continuing – exile to music in an original work he composed based on texts by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwich, sung by Juicy and Soumaya Hallak. Contemporary European music, traditional Middle Eastern music, jazz/soul and hip-hop come together here (04.10, 8 pm). Also utopian is the flamenco evening Poeta by Esteban Murillo, Dani Barba Moreno and Federico Ordoñez, all masterful interpreters of this genre "whose origins are buried in the memory of time," according to Jean-Paul Dessy. "Expect an evening that will make you reconsider the relationship between body and world." (07.10, 8 pm). And there are more musical journeys through time on the program! For instance, the project Miroirs vénitiens by the Clematis ensemble in which the Baroque music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries merges with new music by Belgian composers such as Benoît Mernier, Michel Fourgon and Pierre Bartholomée. "It is a wonderful way to bridge the gap between old and contemporary music and bring both musical forms into dialogue with each other. I believe that music is strongest when it reflects different forms," notes the programmer (08.10, 8 pm). In the same vein, Flemish violinist Wibert Aerts makes a journey through time in his concert Back to Bach with 4 monumental solo works for violin by Johann Sebastian Bach (the founder of the genre), Béla Bartók, Luciano Berio and John Cage (03.10, 12:15 pm).

International stars in Charleroi

Also the opening concert (30.09, 20 hours, PBA Charleroi) reflects the festival theme: Family Tree is the brainchild of the jazz band of French trumpeter David Enhco and the Quatuor Voce. Here classical string players clash with trumpet, piano, double bass and drums, exploring jazz and pop standards. Moreover, they bring an original interpretation of Poulenc and Monteverdi and seize the opportunity to introduce new music as well. The name Family Tree refers to the fact that this is a real family affair; Thomas Enhco is on the piano and the programme is a tribute to father-in-law Didier Lockwood, the renowned French violinist who was among the first to explore the crossovers between jazz and classical music. In Charleroi, there is also the family performance Madame Vitesse, a musical performance directed by Helene Bracke, in which Joëlle Charlier plays the character Vivi Vitesse. Vitesse follows in the footsteps of Clärenore Stinnes, the German adventurer from the 1920s, who was the first woman to drive around the world by car (01.10, 16 hours). Finally, there are no fewer than three performances on the programme of Swiss pianist Beatrice Berrut, who is this year's festival artist of Les Festivals de Wallonie 2023. She makes her appearance during the lunch concert Untold Tales. In this solo performance, she evokes (more or less) familiar stories and plays pieces by Liszt and Tchaikovsky that she transcribed or arranged for piano, as well as three of her own compositions (03.10, 12:30 hours, PBA Charleroi). She also performs in Mozart et Salieri : liaison dangereuse ? (04.10, 20 hours, PBA Charleroi ; 05.10, 20 hours, Arsonic Bergen), a concert with works by the two famous 'brothers-in-arms' of classical music. The programme is supplemented with pieces by Joseph Haydn that Berrut will perform together with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie under the direction of Vahan Mardirossian. Also not to be missed is the Susato Trio, founded in 2022 by violinist Sarah Bayens (Belgium), cellist Mikko Pablo (Philippines-USA) and pianist Markiyan Popil (Ukraine). In 2022 the trio won first prize in the Génération classique competition and now we look forward to their interpretation of Elegie Op.23 by Josef Suk and the Pianotrio No 2 by Ljatosjynsky (10.10, 12:30 hours, PBA Charleroi). The Festival Musical du Hainaut ends in beauty with the closing concert of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège under the direction of Lionel Bringuier and German cellist Alban Gerhardt. Together they perform the famous Concerto No.1 by Shostakovich, as well as a new work by French composer Éric Montalbetti. They finish with Rimsky-Korsakov's magnificent Shéhérazade (13.10, 20 hours, PBA Charleroi).

Dates: from 30 September to 13 October Locations: Arsonic, Bergen / Palais des Beaux-Arts, Charleroi More information: lesfestivalsdewallonie.be/festivals/festival-musical-du-hainaut