On the second Sunday of September traditionally monumental heritage is focussed on during Open Monument Day. AMUZ organizes guided tours in the former St Augustine’s church. Discover this jewel of baroque architecture serving as a contemporary concert venue today. 

The guided tours are for free and take place at 10.30, 11.30 and 12.30 a.m., and 1.30, 2.30 and 3.30 p.m. It is imperative to sign up in advance by sending an email to tickets@amuz.be or filling out the form on www.amuz.be. The guided tours are Dutch spoken. On Open Monument Day you can also visit AMUZ freely between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

14 September, 2014 10:00 -- AMUZ

As of now it is four hundred years ago since a work by Caravaggio was brought to Antwerp. This acquisition by St Paul’s church was negotiated by  none other than Peter Paul Rubens. On the occasion of the exhibition ‘Holy Places’ at the MAS, Caravaggio’s ‘Madonna di Loreto’ will leave its familiar location at Sant’Agostino in Rome.

For AMUZ it is an honour to provide musical illustration for the hosting of this fabulous masterpiece. Soprano Raquel Andueza and theorbo player Jesus Fernandez Baena bring early Italian Baroque music , perfectly rendering the chiaroscuro and the emotions of Caravaggio’s style of painting. The focus in this programme with music by Monteverdi and Merula, among others, is on spiritual love. Brace yourself for its passionate intensity, cutting through you like a knife! Nobody can match Andueza’s honest and direct approach.

This is the opening concert of an exhibition on Holy Places and Holy Books at the MAS / Museum aan de Stroom, and the Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience. For further information on this ambitious exhibition and the parallel series of lectures at AMUZ on Judaism, Christianity and Islam, click here.

Raquel Andueza, soprano | Jesús Fernández Baena, theorbo

in collaboration with MAS Museum aan de Stroom/ Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience & Antwerpen Open

21 September, 2014 13:00 -- AMUZ

Benjamin Britten and Peter Maxwell Davies, two icons of British music, together in one single programme! Davies, sometimes dubbed the ‘enfant terrible’ of British 20th-century music, was not very fond of Britten’s ‘too traditional’ music. But the latter’s Suite Nr 3 for cello solo proves that composers can go wrong about their colleagues.

Davies traveled all over the world and absorbed the most diverse musical styles, like a sponge. In Vesalii Icones all those influences fuse into a marvellous total experience. Medieval and baroque elements perfectly merge into a foxtrot, while everything is kept together by fourteen scenes from the story of Christ’s crucifixion. These scenes are combined with 16th-century anatomical drawings from De humani corporis fabrica by the 16th-century Brabant physician Andreas Vesalius.

Performers
Pieter Wispelwey, cello | Jurjen Hempel, artistic direction | Peter Missotten, video

Programme
B. Britten: Suite nr. 3 voor cello solo | P. M. Davies: Vesalii Icones

I.c.w. Festival van Vlaanderen Vlaams-Brabant & KU[N]ST Leuven i.t.f.o. Vesalius jubilee

03 October, 2014 19:00 -- AMUZ

Benjamin Britten and Peter Maxwell Davies, two icons of British music, together in one single programme! Davies, sometimes dubbed the ‘enfant terrible’ of British 20th-century music, was not very fond of Britten’s ‘too traditional’ music. But the latter’s Suite Nr 3 for cello solo proves that composers can go wrong about their colleagues.

Davies traveled all over the world and absorbed the most diverse musical styles, like a sponge. In Vesalii Icones all those influences fuse into a marvellous total experience. Medieval and baroque elements perfectly merge into a foxtrot, while everything is kept together by fourteen scenes from the story of Christ’s crucifixion. These scenes are combined with 16th-century anatomical drawings from De humani corporis fabrica by the 16th-century Brabant physician Andreas Vesalius.

03 October, 2014 21:00 -- AMUZ

In the august sacral concert hall of AMUZ six speakers are invited to deliver a lecture on their personal pilgrimage and their individual quest in life.

The lectures are distinctively different, yet at the same time truly universal. They deal with the personal reflection on contemporary society and the search for a genuine spirituality, from the vantage point of a specific cultural and societal environment, which is firmly rooted in Islam, Judaism and Christianity, respectively.

Rachid Benzine – born in Morocco – is a contemporary intellectual and Islamologist with a soft spot for hiphop and kickboxing, who is eager to reform traditional Islam in a thoughtful way.

Music: Hassan Boufous – chant

in collaboration with Moussem Nomadisch Kunstencentrum

09 October, 2014 18:00 -- AMUZ

More than half of the world population is Christian, Muslim of Jewish. Despite differences there are also striking similarities. Holy places, holy books is a unique exhibition at the MAS | Museum aan de stroom about the pilgrimage to holy places, while concurrently offering at the Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience a view of the form, content, usage and study of the Tanach (the Old Testament as used by Jews), the Bible and the Koran. An ambitious project supported by several heritage associations and by the three communities of faith. 

AMUZ also participates in this expo with a series of lectures on the religions involved, enlivened with music. Further information on the speakers and the musicians will be available later in the AMUZ journal. On Wednesday, January 14 a closing concert will take place with a.o. Patrizia Bovi & Fadia el Hage.

09 October, 2014 20:00 -- AMUZ