Yves Segers, Norbert Nozy, Yvon Ducène and further back to Jean-Valentin Bender (1832-1873), the first of now already fourteen conductors of the Royal Band of the Guides... Thanks to them, the elite wind orchestra entrusted to them means more than blaring trumpets, shimmering horns, velvety clarinets.
Processions, tattoos, military music festivals, concerts at home and abroad and recordings are daily fare for them. An impressive list of composers, conductors and soloists made it a point of honor to link their names with the Guides: Walter Boeykens, Roeland Hendrikx, Bram Nolf, Anneleen Van Wauwe, François Glorieux, Evgeny Moguilevsky, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynde, Daniel Blumenthal, Eliane Rodrigues, Jan Michiels, Yannick Vandevelde, Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort, Jenny Spanoghe, Andrei Baranov, Lorenzo Gatto, Sylvia and Stéphanie Huang, Justus Grimm, Wouter and Anneleen Lenaerts... The list goes on as 2024 draws to a close.
A fine discovery was the performance of the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Band by Oscar Navarro by Pieter Pellens, saxophonist with Blindman in 2017, Supernova winner in 2018, sought after by Brussels Philharmonic, the Symphony Orchestra of the Munt and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonica della Scala, Orchestra Santa Cecilia and Wiener Jeunesse Orchestra. He teaches at the Royal Conservatorium Antwerpen and is assistant at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. We have not heard the last from the Spanish forty-something Oscar Navarro. In Mechelen he confronted us with his Symphony "Hell & Heaven", in Aarschot it was with a swaggering Saxophone Concerto.
Another young soloist, another surprise. In Zaventem, dynamic cellist Pierre Fontenelle chose Friedrich Gulda, the maverick 'terrorist-pianist'. Unlike the traditional Concerto, this jewel consists of five very different movements: an Overture, a delightful Idylle, a virtuoso Cadenza, a Minuet and a wild Finale Alla Marcia.
Pierre Fontenelle did not hide his enthusiasm and treated us to 30 minutes of pure playing pleasure. And whoever says 'Fontenelle' says 'discovery'. This 'Namurois de l'année 2020', first self-taught in Seattle, then student at the Conservatoria of Luxembourg and Mons, at the IMEP (Namur), where he now teaches, and at the Paris Académie Jaroussky (class of Anne Gastinel) always has something new up his sleeve: a completely unknown encore by Mark Summer, "Julie-O", or a recent concert with the Kammerata Luxembourg in the Château de Bourglinster with compositions 'clever and extremely creative' by Rabl and by his teacher Claude Lenners. A promise to keep an eye on...
At Bozar, Elli Choi took on the Guides and brought a resolute Sibelius, worthy of a third laureate of the latest Elisabeth competition for violin. As for Sibelius, even those who thought they were oversaturated with the inevitable Finlandia, moved further to the edge of their seat when Yves Segers and his band brought it out.
In Leuven, soprano Hanne Roos and tenor Denzil Delaere stole the show. Both were equally proficient in musical theatre and classical. With a red rose on her classy 'little black dress', Hanne Roos did her name proud and charmed with her expressive rendition from "Cabaret", "Elisabeth" and "The Girl in 14 G".
With his spontaneous velvety voice, Denzil Delaere did not shrink from the demanding "La Danza" by Rossini. Before they even tackled the drinking aria from "La Traviata", they convinced us in a moving duet from "Sacco & Vanzetti" by Dirk Brossé. Beautiful!