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Festival 20·21

Next edition: Sep > Oct 2024
open mind, open ears
Transit
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.

In the spotlight

Closing concert WALD / Korpus Kwartet

In WALD (FOREST) the four young horn players of the Korpus Kwartet take the French horn back to its natural habitat: the forest. They worked with composer Siebe Thijs, using Peter Wohlleben’s bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees as a point of departure, to create a brand-new piece and performance: WALD. This mobile concert takes place in a forest: you’ll walk along with the group among the tall trees, and let the horns do their work. Gradually you’ll slip into the wondrous connections between trees, both above and under the ground.


The Duke Story: celebration of the cross-fertilisation between jazz and classical.

After the First World War, many European composers were taken with American jazz. Among them were Bohuslav Martinů, Ervín Schulhoff and Francis Poulenc, who eagerly took inspiration from jazz. 

In The Duke Story, I SOLISTI combine these pieces with new compositions by Erik Desimpelaere, based on world-famous tunes by one of the most important jazz stars of the 1920s, Duke Ellington. 

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Many music lovers still feel that music history ends around 1900. Music written after then, they feel, is contrived, difficult to understand and not enjoyable to listen to.

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Beeldreportage

Photo reports of the festival concerts

Festival 20·21 Edition 2023

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