MA Festival 2021

In summer 2021, MA Festival will be with us once again, with a sparkling programme put together especially for you. MA Festival will start on Friday 6 August and will offer several stunning concerts every day up to and including Saturday 14 August, with the musical cycling route VéloBaroque on Sunday 8 August.
Below are a few key dates:

• 4 May: Start ticketsale MA Friends
• 7 - 10 May: First round MA Competition (online)
• 18 May: Start regular ticketsale
• Friday 6 August: Start of MA Festival 2021
• Sunday 8 August: VéloBaroque
• Saturday 14 August: Final of MA Competition
• Saturday 14 August: MA Festival 2021 finale

The full programme will be announced on Saturday 1 May 2021 during the official programme presentation at Concertgebouw Brugge. Would you like to be there? As a MA Friend, you will receive an invitation to attend the event in person. You will find more information about MA Friends below.

Femke Gyselinck's playlist on Spotify

Can’t wait for the new edition of MA Festival? Then enjoy early music year-round with the playlists by MA Festival on Spotify, put together especially for you. Each month we present to you a playlist with known music and new discoveries. These are put together by musicians and specialists from within the MA Family.

The first playlist of the year was put together by choreographer Femke Gyselinck.

"As a choreographer, my expertise primarily lies with dance, and with baroque music in particular. Nevertheless I was eager to put together a playlist for MA Festival, because I have a cherished memory of the work Pygmalion Double Bill which I presented together with Korneel Bernolet & Apothéosis at the 2019 MA Festival.

I also have an insatiable hunger for music, so this occasion afforded me the perfect opportunity to discover new music, with the emphasis on ‘new music’. I did not want to once again give a platform to the much-loved and universally-known composers, but to allow unsung female baroque composers to be heard.

To support me in my quest, I wrote to my baroque-loving Facebook friends asking them which music by female baroque composers they would recommend. Their tips gave me around 48 hours of music, from which I have made a selection. Hopefully the MA audience will enjoy this playlist as much as I do."

Listen to the playlist here.

Announcing MA Competition 2021

One of the most challenging and prestigious international competitions, the MA Competition, ever since its creation in 1964, has established itself as an unparalleled talent hub. Each year, exceptional emerging musicians from all over the world benefit from opportunities to dialogue with leading professionals in the field of Early Music, enabling them to perfect their artistic practice. The MA Competition has kick-started the international careers of many well-known musicians, including Christophe Rousset (°1961), Kristian Bezuidenhout (°1979), Dmitry Sinkovsky (°1980), Jean Rondeau (°1991) and Justin Taylor (°1992).

To optimally meet the needs of today’s young musicians, the MA Competition will henceforth be introducing a number of innovations

in regard to organisation and format. From now on, the first round will be conducted digitally and will always take place in May. The jury and audience will simultaneously get to know the candidates for the first time via an online streaming platform. This first round will take place from 7 to 10 May 2021 inclusive. Following the deliberation of the first round on 10 May 2021, the jury will announce the twelve semi-finalists. The semi-final will take place live in Bruges on Thursday 12 August, and the final on Saturday 14 August during MA Festival 2021.

Read everything on the MA Competition Website.

Andrea Buccarella's Spotify list

Discover Andrea Buccarella's playlist on Spotify and read about his choice.

I'd like to present to you a very personal playlist that can tell you something about my journey in music, starting from the early years of my musical studies, through the main stages of my artistic career, until now: a kind of musical biography. Each track is taken from a different album, each of which marked an important moment in my musical life.
This path starts with the famous Palestrina's motet "Sicut cervus", which represents the beginning of my musical studies, when I sang as soprano in the Sistine Chapel Choir as a child . It is a piece that I have deeply loved from the first time I heard it and sang hundreds of times in the St. Peter's Basilica. Afterwards, moved by the love for Bach's organ music, I started studying organ and had the opportunity to meet Daniel Matrone, organist and composer with whom I mainly studied improvisation and the romantic and contemporary repertoire. He has been one of the most crucial and important figures in my musical training and I am very grateful to him. The piece I chose is taken from a recording of his compositions, played by himself, which is inspired by different ages and musical styles, from the Middle Ages to our time. With the ensembles Concerto Romano and Musica Antiqua Latina I had my first experiences in the field of Baroque music, which prompted me to become interested in the harpsichord and in the study of basso continuo. With them I also made my first recordings, of which I present some tracks, ranging from popular to sacred music and from the late Renaissance to the mature Baroque. After these experiences, I started conducting the Abchordis Ensemble, for which I have undertaken a conscientious research, aiming for the discovery of musical masterpieces from the past which are not performed in modern times, with special focus on the sacred repertoire of 18th-century Italy. Alongside the conducting, I continued my harpsichord studies with Enrico Baiano and then with Andrea Marcon, with whom I also had the opportunity to have my first experiences in Opera productions with Handel's "Il Parnasso in festa" and "Alcina". Finally I fulfilled my dream of recording a solo album, from which I'm glad to present J.S. Bach's Toccata BWV 912. I chose and suggested only one track from each album, but of course I highly recommend listening to the complete albums.

Mozart - Hummel - Beethoven

Johann Nepomuk Hummel, whose music represents the transition from classicism to romanticism, was one of the most acclaimed pianists of his time. In addition to an extensive collection of his own compositions, Hummel wrote various arrangements of existing orchestral works for chamber music, such as the piano concertos of his teacher Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or the symphonies of his friend Ludwig van Beethoven. The Romanian pianist Aurelia Visovan, first laureate of MA Competition 2019, will release her long-awaited CD Mozart - Hummel - Beethoven on September 11th. The fascinating program includes Hummel's own Piano Sonata in F minor, op. 20, his arrangements for flute, piano, violin and cello of Mozart's Piano Concerto in C and Beethoven's First Symphony in C. The CD is the result of a collaboration between Outhere Music and MA Competition.

MA Festival 20 Online

MA Festival is already over, but you can still fully enjoy our 57th edition thanks to Klara and Evil Penguin TV. Follow the rebroadcast of the concert O Gloriosa on September 3^rd with InAlto, via Klara Live! The concert will be available for a further two weeks on www.klara.be and the free Klara app. Evil Penguin TV also made two MA festival concerts available on www.evilpenguintv.com. Request your free trial now to access the full catalogue and relive Leçons des Ténèbres with Capriola di Gioia and Ruins with Pitou en B.O.X.

Teaser MA Festival 2020

Watch our video off our festival here.
MA Festival 2020 takes place from 01.08 to 09.08.2020.
You can find more information about the program here