Brussels Philharmonic

This concert series celebrates the power of imagination: our fantasy transforms what we see in the real world into a universe that is entirely our own, coloured by who we are. What is real? What is illusion? What is imagination? What is reality?

Musically, the three works each explore our sense of reality in their own way: Joan Tower uses the strength of wildly branching sequoias as a metaphor for the sound bath from which she distils her own voice. Camille Pépin takes a Chinese fairy tale as a mirror for our reality. And in Petrushka, Stravinsky plays with roles, personas, and layered realities – until no one knows what was the fairy tale and what was the real world.

The visual dimension enhances this sense of estrangement – and invites the audience to imagine a personal parallel universe. The new works by artist Ellen Vrijsen, inspired by the music, activate the viewer’s imagination. Motion designer Ychaï Gassenbauer takes it a step further, stretching the boundaries between what is imagined and what is real: images overlap, shift, fade, and flow into one another. What is reality? What is imagined? A parallel universe in which music and image converse.

Flagey, Brussels Philharmonic