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"Culture is not an optional extra! It is a key driver!"

Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Minister for Culture and External Affairs, in the framework of a seminar on "European Festivals: Driving Success Through Culture"

Ars Musica 2011 throwing open its doors to creativity

Wednesday, 02-03-2011

For its 22nd edition, the celebrated contemporary music festival, Ars Musica, is throwing open its doors to creativity, showing just how diverse, unpredictable and playful today’s music can be.

For this edition, Ars Musica is promising an explosion of energy. With a diverse, richly talented group of new musicians being given the floor, the emphasis is on performers and composers breaking down the barriers, challenging each other, and reinventing the traditional concert format. Early music, jazz, pop, rock and world music all come together. New technologies have revolutionised the way we perform and compose. Improvisation has come back to the concert hall.

In Belgium, creativity is flourishing, with new ensembles blossoming, and the Conservatoires and Academies opening up to new works. Even the larger orchestras are including today’s new music in their programming. Composers are hard at work, and with the emergence of often very young talent, there’s plenty of new blood.

So, what’s in the programme? Dedicated to composers and performers from all over the world, Ars Musica 2011 is promising audiences some startling new discoveries together with a few masterpieces, unconventional concert hall layouts, and an audit of current trends in composition and performance, without precedent in the Belgium Precinct.

Concerts will run throughout Brussels and in Liege, Mons, Antwerp and Bruges. Ars Musica is promising a few surprises along the way too, so you never know, “the dwarf on steroids” from the film In Bruges, might actually put in an appearance !

(Source: Pierre Bartholomée, Curator 2011, in the 2011 Ars Musica brochure)