Birds of Paradise Festival

Halfie

The New York cellist and composer Andrew Yee, member of the famous Attacca Quartet, brings music for solo cello with Halfie that is tailor-made, both literally and figuratively. Halfie refers to Yee’s experiences as a non-binary and bi-racial person, being part of multiple communities without really feeling at home.

Yee plays her own music as well as that of Bach and Norman. At the beginning of the concert, Remy Alexander interviews her about developing your own identity in sound, her playing without the use of a cello pin and also about the items in her self-curated Birds of Paradise Artist Room on the festival site.

Remy van Kesteren

After the break, electronic harpist Remy van Kesteren and the ADAM Quartet join Yee for a cross-pollination with electronic music. Strong examples of this can be heard on Real Life (2021) by Yee’s Attacca Quartet and Remy van Kesteren’s recently released Muses (2023). Electro is not as far away from modern classical as you might think. So expect special arrangements from Radiohead, Kendrick Lamar and Aphex Twin, among others.

Get ready for an audiovisual trip with larger than life video images and an atmospheric, neoclassical soundtrack performed by the fastest pianist on the planet and a cellist extraordinaire.

The End of the World is a collaboration between Ukrainian pianist Lubomyr Melnyk, Canadian cellist Julia Kent (Anohni & The Johnsons) and the Turin audiovisual collective SPIME.IM. A combination of acoustic music, live electronics and impressive images merge together. An immersive, multimedia live experience that celebrates the beauty of nature while dramatically portraying the environmental challenges facing our planet.

False we hope

Ellis Ludwig-Leone leads a musical double life. In addition to being the leader of the New York indie band San Fermin, he is also a classical composer and songwriter. Just like composer Bryce Dessner, who is also a songwriter for The National. As the successor to Dessner, who performed at Birds of Paradise last year, it is now up to Ludwig-Leone to show his multifaceted side. ‘Classically’ in False we hope: a breathtakingly beautiful and moving song cycle, which Ludwig-Leone wrote for soprano Eliza Bagg (Lisel, Roomful of Teeth) during the pandemic. He takes place behind the piano himself, supported by the four violinists of the ADAM Quartet.

San Fermin

After the break, Ludwig-Leone will perform together with his band San Fermin in a special acoustic setting. Joined again by the ADAM Quartet and Eliza Bagg as special guests.

A unique line-up and world premiere with arrangements from the new San Fermin album Arms, which will be released in February. Only show in Europe!

Bird’s Nest is the place where you are the very first to discover new music, exciting artists and unique collaborations. The Birds of Paradise Festival presents 7 artists who are about to break through on 3 stages. But before they fly out of the Bird’s Nest, you will discover them for the first time with never-before-heard work.

Amatorski

After a 10-year break, Belgian Amatorski released a new album on Friday March 1 entitled Curves and Bends, Things Veer. The band’s music is still difficult to capture in one word. Inspired by acts such as Sigur Ros and Radiohead, the foursome makes dreamy whisper pop. They call it a ‘strangely beautiful universe of songs’. The natural habitat for a real Bird of Paradise.

Sarah Neutkens x ADAM Quartet

Composer, pianist, writer and fashion model Sarah Neutkens wrote the new string quartet entitled Fil Mishmish in Marrakesh. Loosely translated: “at the time when the apricots bloom”. An expression that says there is a very small chance of something happening, also known as wishful thinking. Especially for this evening, Sarah Neutkens, together with the ADAM Quartet, will perform this string quartet live for the first time. She also plays her own solo piano compositions, with which she entered the Classical Top 400 this year.

Lisel

Lisel (Eliza Bagg), from L.A., knows how to combine the best of different worlds as an opera singer and ‘electro-pop alien’. In her words: “I am going for a maximalist sound, but my sources of inspiration also include minimalists. From Philip Glass to Charli XCX, Carl Stone to Grimes”. Just listen to her single ‘One At A Time’ from the recently released and critically acclaimed Patterns For Auto-tuned Voices And Delay. From just four simple words, Lisel manages to create an enchantingly beautiful, Escher-like sound cathedral, as only she can.

Strange Boy

Singer/violinist Kieran Brunt and keyboardist Matt Huxley are Strange Boy. A London band with its own unique sound: somewhere between orchestral and electronic. The duo describes their sound as a mix between club vibe and morning mass. In addition to their own work, they were also asked to co-write with well-known artists such as Nils Frahm, Terry Riley and Nico Muhly. In return, Muhly provided the beautiful string arrangements for Strange Boy’s debut album Love Remains, which will be released in March. Just in time for Bird’s Nest!

No Plexus

No Plexus is an electronic collaboration between singer/composer Bec Plexus and producer No Compliments. This year, as Rewire’s Young Artist in Residence, the duo had the opportunity to build a spectacular, multimedia show around their long-awaited debut album Rite of Passage. The live set of this album is about the ‘millennial experience’ and developed to operatic proportions with light effects and visuals that will resonate for a long time. For fans of A.G. Cook, Oneohtrix Point Never and Björk.

Waakhond

After the film academy, Casper Buijtendijk, alias Waakhond, devoted himself completely to music. Or rather, on the release of his debut album Godsdrift. Godsdrift should develop into a unique, multimedia performance work, in which he uses his background as a filmmaker to bring the story of the music to life. For Birds of Paradise he presents a first solo performance of the album, in order to experience the entire arc of the album with the audience.

DOMNIQ x WERC

DOMNIQ x WERC is a collaboration between audiovisual collective WERC and the Netherlands’ most versatile percussionist DOMNIQ. In this work in progress, they investigate the interfaces between human creativity and artificial intelligence. Can AI provide more creativity? Can it challenge and expand artists’ physical boundaries? You will experience the first results during Bird’s Nest in an interactive performance and symbiosis between man and machine.

A symphonic visual concert

Pop singer Rufus Wainwright can definitively join the division of contemporary opera composers with his opera Hadrian. The first part of this concert is a shortened version of Hadrian, an opera in 4 acts by Rufus Wainwright and Daniel MacIvor. It contains scenes from the first three acts of the opera that deal with the death of Antinous at the end of Act 3. Expect an orchestra with 5 soloists, supported with beautiful images by Robert Mapplethorpe. In the second half, after the break, Rufus Wainwright plays orchestrated songs from his own repertoire. He will also do some collaborations with the soloists and musicians from the first half before the break.

Brussels Philharmonic

Clark Rundell – conductor
Rufus Wainwright – composition, vocals

Davóne Tines – Hadrian
Denzil Delaere – Antinous
Christian Federici – Turbo
Katrien Baerts – Sabina
Iris van Wijnen – Plotina

Robert Mapplethorpe – image
Daniel MacIvor – libretto
Jorn Weisbrodt – concept and design

Hadrian

Hadrian is Rufus Wainwright’s second opera. The work tells the story of the Roman emperor Hadrian and focuses on his dramatic love affair with the young man Antinous. According to Wainwright, the story about openly gay love against the backdrop of the political climate has many parallels with ‘how we live today’.

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright made waves as a singer-songwriter with several successful CDs. The artist of American-Canadian parents has never hidden his love for classical music and opera. He gave concert series with Amsterdam Sinfonietta and in 2009 he wrote his first opera Prima Donna, followed in 2018 by Hadrian. To bring the operas to the concert stage, he came up with the concept of a ‘symphonic visual concert’.

At the start of the concert, Rufus Wainwright will be briefly interviewed by Neil Wallace. During the interview they will talk about the creation of this special version of Hadrian.