“We seem to have a very eclectic programme that is very diverse, but at the same time, we’re looking at works that are all very melodic,” explains Eric Delson, the society’s musical director and also the head of performing arts at the International School of Brussels.

Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, which had its 1930 premiere in Brussels, was composed for chorus and orchestra, but will be sung for this concert with a piano accompaniment – “the black and white version,” as Delson calls it. “As true aficionados of photography know, black and white is much more difficult and more interesting.”

With the audience focussed on the voices, rather than being swept away by the orchestration, they will be able to appreciate Stravinsky’s “raw use of structure, harmony, pitch,” he says.

The Boulanger work, meanwhile, will be “something new to a lot of listeners and something fun for the choir, digging into a style that’s very impressionistic,” says Delson. Boulanger won the Prix de Rome in 1913 with her cantata Faust et Hélène, making her the first woman to win the prize for music. Nonetheless she is not a well-known figure, which can be largely attributed to her ill health through most of her short life and her death at the age of just 25. The focus is usually on her sister, Nadia, a music teacher who counted Aaron Copland and many other American composers among her pupils.

As well as French works, the Brussels Choral Society’s upcoming concert also draws on the German musical tradition with Franz Schubert’s Nachtgesang im Walde for men and Johannes Brahms’s Vier Gesänge for women. The international programme reflects the choir’s own composition, which is made up of about 140 members representing more than 20 nationalities.

The proceeds from the concert will go to a research project by Professor Stefaan Van Gool at the Leuven University Hospital on late-stage malignant brain tumours.

26 June, 20.00
Lemmensinstituut
Herestraat 53, Leuven 
www.brusselschoralsociety.com

Free tickets!

Brussels Choral Society has five pairs of free tickets to give away to readers of Flanders Today. To enter to win, send an email with “Brussels Choral Society” in the subject line to editorial@flanderstoday.eu  by Monday, 21 June. Winners will be notified by 22 June.