Festival 20·21
Festival 20·21 is Leuven’s yearly hotspot for classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here, open ears may enjoy repertoire to be (re)discovered and musical insider tips, or, during the three days of Transit, may embrace the many surprises of exhilarating contemporary premieres.
New edition 2024
Combine your concert visit with a city trip
From 12 September to 26 October, Festival 20-21 organises around 30 concerts and activities at various locations in Leuven. The music of the 20th century will once again excite, confuse and amaze. Transit is looking ahead to all the exciting things happening in new music.
Tickets can be bought via the Order tickets button on each concert page.
Staying overnight in the heart of Leuven at a special rate? Book at festival partner Pentahotel.
Festival kicks off with Spectra & Thomas Blondelle and Eine schöne Müllerin
Daan Janssens was inspired by Schubert's magisterial song cycle Die schöne Müllerin.
Lise Bruyneel designed a video especially for this occasion in which music, image and poetry perfectly meld with each other.
SPECTRA who created Eine schöne Müllerin in 2018 is on the festival stage with top Belgian tenor Thomas Blondelle.
Three great Czech composer portraits at the Theme Day!
Leoš Janáček, Boduslav Martinů and - lesser known, but absolutely brilliant - Erwin Schulhoff, rule the Theme Day Czech that! on Sunday 13 October.
First up are the strings in three - passionate/melodic/modern - sextets and a quartet. Then the wind instruments take over and the atmosphere turns completely: humour, mockery and cheerful melancholy tumble over each other.
The unequalled Pavel Haas Quartet can share all this Czech passion like no other. I SOLISITI ( + percussion + strings) even briefly disappears into the Leuven orchestra pit! So you can completely surrender to Gerda Dendooven's moving drawings, live at work!
Programme
SPECTRA, Filip Rathé, Thomas Blondelle, Lise Bruyneel
Trio Khaldei, Maximilian Lohse, Tony Nys & Dietrich Henschel
Graindelavoix, Jan Michiels, Björn Schmelzer
Pavel Haas Quartet, Pavel Nikl, Ivan Vokáč
Brecht Valckenaers
MATRIX-project Symfonieorkest d'Academie Sint-Niklaas
LUDWIG & Vincent van Amsterdam
I SOLISTI & SPECTRA
Daan Vandewalle, Emi See, Djuwa Mroivili, Lukas Huisman & Collectif Faire-Part
Beyond the Imperative of Pleasure
More and more in the last few years, classical music has been increasingly promoted something purely to enjoy. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something in and of itself, but perhaps we might be just a tiny bit more ambitious. After all, music has more to offer, and people do too. Festival 20·21’s aim is to encourage that tiny bit of ambition – of course, keeping open ears and an open mind.
Partytime (as usual)
Prelude concert and lecture to mark the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg & Charles Ives
1874 was a vintage year for Western music. Vienna saw the birth of Arnold Schoenberg – on 13 September, exactly 150 years ago – whose leap into atonality permanently shifted the boundaries of our musical consciousness.
