Dear Festival Friend,

Having already redesigned our programme three times to create an adapted edition in line with the COVID-19 measures, our Festival has now finally taken shape.

With our core aims of being small, local and coronavirus-proof, our goal is to respond to the enormous need for live music, togetherness, encounters and connections. Above all, we want to offer artists the platform that they so desperately need in order to carry out their profession.

Just like every year, on 19 September the Festival will once again be taking over Ghent city centre with the 18th edition of OdeGand. Of course, this edition will be somewhat different to what we are accustomed to. We will be omitting the large outdoor stages and the fireworks this year, but the music ringing out across the city will be as adventurous as ever!

Collegium Vocale Gent will be celebrating its fiftieth birthday and this will be extensively celebrated during Flanders Festival Ghent. This will include Für Jan van Eyck performing a brand-new work for choir and organ by composer Arvo Pärt commissioned by the City of Ghent. With O Dolorosa Gioia, they will be performing music by van Gesualdo, and Bach will also be on the programme.

For those craving symphonic music, we have an unusual alternative up our sleeves: Pocket-sized Beethoven! From 25 to 27 September, major Belgian orchestras will be performing all nine Beethoven symphonies in special chamber music arrangements. Unprecedented!

The wonderful Morning Dew also deserves a special mention. Atmospheric concerts in the early morning in the idyllic garden of the seventeenth-century Carmelite monastery in the heart of Ghent. What could be more intimate? For those who cannot get enough of this fairy-tale place, there is also Afternoon Delight.

And last, but not least: we asked eleven musical houses in Ghent to join us in devising a musical translation of a panel of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. The result will be performed during the closing event Listen to the Lamb! on the Bijloke site on 3 October.

Tickets sales open on 21 August.

Stay safe and start counting down with us!

Veerle Simoens, Director
and the entire Flanders Festival Ghent team

Read our Festival brochure here (only in Dutch available).