Calliope Choeur de Femmes - R. Théodoresco & Vlaams Radio Koor - J. Duijck

This double concert is the apotheosis of the Day of Choral Music in de Singel. The phenomenal French female-voice chorus Calliope and the Flemish Radio Chorus give of their best in a programme where Vic Nees is the compositional link. Régine Théodoresco founded Calliope in Lyon in 2000. For this programme, she has drawn from the rich French choral tradition of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a tradition kept particularly alive by Calliope. In 1980, the 'Magnificat' by Vic Nees was unanimously acclaimed a masterpiece by the choral world and the music press alike. Nees was taking a new direction. Following an experimental and neo-Romantic phase, he returned to diatonic notation and repetitive music. The Flemish Radio Chorus juxtaposes Nees' new simplicity with the work of a younger generation. Rudi Tas' 'Cantiones Spirituales' sounds playful, refreshing, melodic, festive, even exuberant, and ultimately intimate. Craftsmanship, too, in the polychrome 'On Death' by Kurt Bikkembergs to a text by John Keats.