More than 1,000 singers from countries involved in the First World War will be coming together to perform a concert for peace in Brussels on November 9th 2014.
Sunday’s sold-out event features the world première of a new work dedicated to the war’s victims, as well as a live link to the International Space Station for a message of peace from a German astronaut.
The organisers, Flanders Festival Brussels, say the concert ‘affirms the role of art in general, and singing together in particular, as the universal glue that keeps us together.’
It will be the culmination of a week of music-making by 39 Belgian and international choirs in towns and cities across Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels.
All 1,300 singers, both professionals and amateurs, will unite in the Belgian capital on November 9th to perform with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra at the Koekelberg Basilica.
Under the baton of Estonian conductor Andres Mustonen, they’ll give the world première of Dies Illa by the Polish composer, Krzystof Penderecki. Dedicated to all victims of the First World War, Penderecki’s work expresses a message of the hope that ‘we must always keep alive to strive for a peaceful global community.’
The programme also includes music by the Belgian pianist and composer André Devaere, who was killed in action in November 1914 aged 24.
Two days before the 96th anniversary of the Armistice, audience and performers will hear a message of peace delivered live by the German astronaut, Alexander Gerst, from the International Space Station.
Information & images supplied by Flanders Festival Brussels
Posted by Peter Alhadeff, Centenary News