29-9-2022 - Hayoun Choi in Concert -  ‘Violoncelles en folie’

Concert at the Sucrerie de Wavre, in collaboration with the Festival Musiq3 2022

This year, the festival Musiq 3 is under the thema of madness

For the first time in the history of the Festivals of Musiq3, the opening concert welcomes the winner of the first first prize of the Queen Elisabeth contest, the Korean cellist Hayoung Choi. She will play with the 'Orchestre du Festival Musiq3,' in a complete mad program.

Hayoung Choi is aged 24. She arrives from South Korea and plays a cello of Nicolas Bergonzi, an instrument loaned by Florian Leonhard de Londre

Remember, last spring : she seducted the public and impressed the jury of the Queen Elisabeth contest. WhenHayoung plays, she does not only music. Every movement of her body, her eyes, her hands and her arms illuminate and reveal every musical note to the audience.

With her audacity and her playing imbued with both interiority and expressiveness, she conquered the hearts of the spectators and the jury, especially with the Capriccio per Siegfried Palm of Penderecki in her recital in the semi-final, with the best interpretation of imposed piece of Jörg Widmann', but especially in the final, performing the famous concerto of Lutold Lutoslawski.

In that concerto, there is an aggressive orchestra that is there to fight with the cellist, who throws himself combatively into the battle. And it ends with a bluster from the cellist.

It was in front of a Henri Leboeuf room in madness, that hayoun Choi's cello had fought against the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra. And the audience was won over, since Hayoung Choi received a real standing ovation. The jury too, by naming her 1st laureate 2022.

She has just returned from her tour in Korea and she will join the wonderful String Orchestra of the Musiq3 Festival, made up of the best elements from the Brussels Conservatory under the direction of Shirly Laub.

On the program of this concert, Penderecki's Divertimento and Stravinsky's Concerto in D for string orchestra. But Hayoung Choi has accustomed us to think outside the box, to highlight lesser-known works from the cellist repertoire. Like the Lutoslawski Concerto, it is vasks' Concerto No. 2 for cello and string orchestra that the Korean cellist and the Musiq3 Festival orchestra will present to us.

With this choice, the young musicians found themselves in front of a unique work; they had never been confronted with this contemporary concerto and this forced them out of their comfort zone. But it also gives them the very inspiring opportunity to work with Hanyung Choi, a virtuoso of their age, consecrated by the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

And in the first part of the evening, the public will be able to discover an ensemble of cellos from the academies of Walloon Brabant: ten classes of cellos of the academies of Walloon Brabant take up the challenge of performing in the first part of the opening concert of the Musiq3 Walloon Brabant Festival. With the participation of the academies of Jodoigne, Wavre, Rixensart, Grez-Doiceau, La Hulpe and Braine l’Alleud-Waterloo.

"Violoncelles en folie" - "Cello's in Madness"

An amateur ensemble of 67 cellists and 2 double bassists will perform in pre-concert.

The project was born as an extension of the arrival in Wavre of the cellist Hayoun Choi. How to bring young people to a concert? By making them play of course.
When Michel, former director of the Wavre Academy, submitted to the current director, Jean-Marc Decueninck, the idea of bringing together, in a new orchestra, all the cellists of the various music academies of Brabant, the project received an enthusiastic yes.

However, time was running out: there were not even 4 months between the Queen Elisabeth and the date of the concert in Wavre. Michel Vanstals, instigator of this beautiful meeting that puts young people in the spotlight - and project leader, - quickly got in touch with all the directors of the Brabant Music Academy who also showed interest.

Together, they defined the 3 principles that served as the basis for the construction of the project:

• Allowing all young people – not just the most advanced – to participate. Programming had to remain accessible.
• Since it was a 'pre-concert', the piece had to be quite short 15 to 20' maximum.

The choice fell on a study in the shape of Pachelbel's Canons. Luckily, the group knew a talented Belgian composer, Michel Berckmans, who had already composed a work for several cellos, the 'Tango des Siciliens'. It made sense to ask the composer, Mr. Berckmans, to conduct the orchestra.

• 3rd element: the directors of the academies involved wanted to have an original composition for the occasion. The work was commissioned from Laurent Pigeolet, professor of composition and analysis at the Wavre Academy.

All the elements were on the table, but the ensemble "Violoncelles en folie" deserves its title: in a few weeks, all these young people have joined their enthusiasms with those of their teachers, to present you this Tango of the Sicilians.