Whispering Leaves returns with a new, colourful collection of songbirds in hidden Ghent city gardens! This year the gardens are located in Sint-Amandsberg, once a proud flower-growing municipality. What began six years ago as a Covid project has now grown into the coziest Sunday of Ghent Festival Van Vlaanderen.

The ingredients are simple: a garden, a singer, and a musician. Sometimes it can be even smaller, with the singer accompanying themselves. But the fourth element is at least as important: that's you, the audience, comfortably close by.

The voice guides you like a red thread along eleven intimate concerts. Tenor Door Van Bergen and pianist Jef Kolacny bring Schumann's Dichterliebe to life, the guitar/voice duo Lovers offers a serenade with electronica, the quartet Spove connects Norwegian and Middle Eastern folk, Eliana Glass presents her debut album E, and poet Sarah De Koning brings a mix of poetry and music together with Natasha Pirard. This and much more once again fills six Ghent city gardens.

Six Sints-Amandsberg gardens

Eleven intimate concerts

Singer Adja and guitarist Alexis Nootens present an idiosyncratic blend of soul and jazz.

With voice, viola, and the Indian shruti box, Bibiri creates an intimate, improvisatory sound world.

Love and nature are portrayed in sixteen songs from Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, performed by tenor Door Van Bergen and pianist Jef Kolacny.

Eliana Glass creates jazzy, minimalist compositions for voice and piano.

With only her voice and guitar, singer-songwriter Emma Hessels creates songs about longing, love and loneliness.

Las Lloronas brings a distinctive blend of folk, classical and global music, with three voices, four languages, and clarinet, guitar and cello.

From Latvia to Cameroon and Mongolia: tradition and imagination meet in the programme of vocal trio Les Itinérantes.

The duo Lovers brings an electro-acoustic ode to love at the crossroads of improvisation, classical music, jazz and pop.

Nathalie Schaap brings voice and double bass into dialogue, with original work and arrangements of pieces by some of her inspirations.

Sarah de Koning and Natasha Pirard combine poetry and musical performance in a search into how women’s voices are passed on, remembered, and perceived.

The quartet Spove brings together voice, fiddle, and double bass in a blend of Norwegian and Syrian folk.

Autisme Vlaanderen x Whispering Leaves

This year we are working together with Autisme Vlaanderen, a valuable exchange in which they guide us and share their insights. The collaboration is still in its early stages, but it fits with our ambition to make our festivals more accessible and inclusive, step by step.

To this end, we are paying extra attention to clear practical information, well-organised printed materials, and predictability. In this way, we hope to help visitors begin their festival experience well-prepared and at ease.

Your feedback is also of great value to us. We are always open to suggestions!