The International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation organized an artistic residency held in Farnières (Belgium) in June 2019 with young musicians from different countries in the context of the Music Up Close Network. These residencies are designed to encourage the exchange of knowledge and good practices between artists and enable the co-creation of new works.

In the context of the Music Up Close Network Creative Europe project, IYMF organized a one-week artistic residency in Belgium in May 2018 involving 14 young musicians from the Orchestras of Ljubjana, Sarajevo, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Lille, Montenegro and Rome and six young musicians from the MUS-E network. This residential session introduced an innovative methodology that combined art creation and collective intelligence, aiming to transform the individual and society by freeing everyone’s creative forces. The sessions pointed out rhythmic awareness through body experience, body as a collective creation medium, musical composition & soundtrack, undiscovered possibilities of voice and its relation with the body and the group, as well as creation based on collective improvisation such as drama exercises and mental preparation for the creation process. They had workshop with a class of children from a school of Grand Halleux, and focused on the relationship with nature, including the use of natural materials, in order to generate sounds and compose musical pieces.

On the 4th of May, we held the final event of the project Homelands, places of belonging celebrating and shedding a spotlight on 6 monhts of co-creation and fruitfult collaboration between 8 refugee-artists and partners from the socio-cultural sector of Brussels! This is just to get a taste of the event… Pictures by Kristof Claeys.

On the 10th of December 2018, the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation collaborated with Emergences asbl for the conference of Pierre Rabhi, a dear fiend to Yehudi Menuhin, on “La Sobriété Heureuse” at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). On this occasion, the orchestra in residence at IYMF – The Brussels Chamber Orchestra (BCO) – gave a unique performance.

One of the highlights of the year 2018  was the “Diversity Makes Music” concert in Flagey – one of the most important cultural venues of Brussels – on 21 November 2018. Through this concert we wanted to address an contemporary issue dear to us all, namely the migration crisis. This unique concert was a dialogue between East and West, retracing the journey of the Syrian dancer Ahmad Joudeh who was forced to leave his country and travel to Europe. Whereas policies and politicians often fail to create links between very different populations, between the welcoming and the welcomed, artists have a special talent for building bridges and highlighting the universality of what unites us rather than what separates us. This was the message conveyed by this event, which was a great success and a dynamic demonstration of social inclusion at European level.

© Pictures Doron Chmiel