TIME TO CELEBRATE! The Flanders Festival has now been active in Leuven for twenty years, and TRANSIT is going to be fifteen. I often compare TRANSIT to a maternity ward. The composers and performers are the parents, the audience is society, and the festival the ideal place to bring the new artistic being into the world. The parents and society are responsible for helping the new baby to grow and flourish, since a maternity ward, or a single festival, simply can’t do the job alone.
This year, TRANSIT is expecting seventeen new scions and is providing a crèche for the youngest ones (read: works ten years old or younger). SPECTRA will more or less bring the best of Flanders’ compositional talent together. Nordic Affect, Bozzini Quartet and ELISION Ensemble will present exciting music from all the corners of the world, and afterwards they’ll export the premieres by Thomas Smetryns, Frederik Neyrinck and Serge Verstockt worldwide. ChampdAction thrives in the TRANSIT biotope, with the younger generation’s against-the-grain music. And Mauro Pawlowski, who has long wanted to do something with Zwerm, will now get his chance. Once the 2014 festival’s final chord has been sounded by the Neue Vocalsolisten, ensemble mosaik and video artist Anne Quirynen, the corks will be popped and the party will start!
Mark Delaere artistic director
programme TRANSIT 2014
TRANSIT Collectie is an initiative of MATRIX [New Music Centre], in cooperation with Festival 20/21 and the support of the city of Leuven.
