Ex Nihilo brings together a diverse palette of music into one continuous flow. Ligeti's Musica Ricercata forms the spine of the programme, interwoven with 20th-century works that resonate with it and new interludes by Brecht Valckenaers. Together, they trace a lineage of invention-exploring how composers reimagine their musical language and the piano itself ex nihilo, "from nothing."

When film composers turn to classical music, they shed a straitjacket rather than lose a safety net. In his Metamorfosi di Violetta, Ennio Morricone dissects the unravelling of La Traviata's heroine with filmic acuity. Tigran Mansurian's Agnus Dei oscillates between chant and dissonance to evoke unresolved grief. John Corigliano's Soliloquy turns inward even further, transforming private loss into quiet radiance. Bernard Herrmann never sought classical abstraction, yet Hitchcock's musical alter ego-the composer of the Psycho and Vertigo scores-provides this programme's pi�ce de r�sistance: Souvenir du voyage, a nostalgic gem with profound cinematic sensibility.

With my second album, "All Things Will Clear Up, Eventually", I want to encourage people to pause-to take a moment to truly feel the struggles in their lives, reflect on themselves, and engage in introspection. It's like lying on your back and gazing at the clouds, watching them appear, shift, and eventually dissolve. You begin to see shapes and patterns-new things you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't taken the time to look a little longer. I believe that pausing and "gazing at the clouds" is essential for our mental well-being. It keeps us from fleeing into the rush of daily life and ignoring the difficult parts. Instead, it invites us to slow down and attentively observe what surfaces and moves within and around us. And I believe that pausing gives hope. These are the moments when, even in the midst of difficulty, we slowly begin to notice new possibilities and beauty-the blue sky between the clouds, the childlike images hidden in the darker ones. I believe my music can play a comforting and empowering role in this process.

Why Poesia? Because this album explores the cello as a lyrical instrument, with resonances close to the human voice. From the bel canto of Mercadante, a little-known but refined opera composer, to Vanherenthals' flamboyant Rhapsody on the Themes of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, each work evokes the vocal universe, sometimes with modesty, sometimes with exuberance.

The Flemish Music Heritage series is a journey of discovery, reviving remarkable pieces of musical heritage. Forgotten scores are brought to light, and familiar compositions are given a fresh perspective. In close collaboration with the Study Centre for Flemish Music, the recordings are founded on intensive research in libraries and archives and meticulously prepared score editions.? The works, expertly selected by connoisseurs, are performed by valued musicians and ensembles who passionately restore neglected and forgotten composers to the recognition they deserve. With these vibrant composer monographs, Antarctica Records aims to broaden horizons and enrich the repertoire with rediscovered treasures from the past. This third volume of the Flemish Music Heritage series focuses on piano works by Joseph Ryelandt (1870-1965). Spanning nearly five decades of his creative output, the recording features five piano works-including two early sonatas, the expressive Six Preludes, and two later works that highlight Ryelandt's evolution toward a more transparent, neoclassical style. Performed by Jozef de Beenhouwer, who has championed Ryelandt's music for decades, the album sheds light on a versatile and refined voice in Belgian musical history.

Spain and the guitar - an inseparable combination. Serenades of Spain goes beyond cliches, unveiling the rich musical heritage of both the country and the guitar, and takes the listener on a journey through three guitars: baroque, romantic, and classical - both solo and in duo with voice or cello. Featuring works by Spanish composers and those inspired by Spain, this album blends Flemish Renaissance court music, Baroque dances, expressive romanticism, neocasticismo, impressionistic colors, and folklore - a vibrant mosaic of Spain's musical history and the guitar.

Debut album by a young talented Russian guitarist. Well constructed programme based on Leo Brouwer and Agustin Barrios. An engaging listening from start to end, thanks to the Kurenchakova's prowess and eloquence and to the warmly resonant recording.�"Lux Amoris Aeterni" ("The Radiance of Eternal Love") is an album about divine love in the language of music, expressed through the gentle timbre of the classical guitar.

CORO: inspired by Luciano Berio's 31-song composition of the same name, George de Decker painted a cycle of 31 canvases. The key sentence Berio took as his starting point comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda: 'Venid a ver la sangre por las calles' (Come and see the blood in the streets) - a caustic reference to General Pinochet's seizure of power in Chile in 1973. For the exhibition of this cycle of paintings, de Decker wrote a composition for female voices. On the soundtrack, he incorporated vocal recordings of Els Van Laethem, Anne Marie Honggokoesoemo and Herlinde Ghekiere. At the request of pianist Geert Callaert, he added a piano part, so that CORO ultimately became a composition for solo piano, with a soundtrack with female voices. CORO is preceded by two new scores in the same sound idiom.

This second volume of the Flemish Musical Heritage series focuses on art songs by�Gustave Huberti (1843-1910). Songs are performed by two leading Belgian singers (soprano and baritone). Texts are in German, Dutch and French. The result is a pleasant portrait of a gifted composer in his different life periods.

World Premiere Recordings: This is a rediscovery of�forgotten scores as the piano sonatas�Joseph Ryelandt haven't been recorded before. Fittingly performed by Jozef de Beenhouwer who has dedicated hilmself to Flemish music for which he received the�Lifetime Achievement Award of Klara in 2010.�Expertly Curated Works: Produced in close collaboration with the Study Centre for Flemish Music (Studiecentrum Vlaamse Muziek), guaranteeing scholarly and artistic depth.�Cultural Enrichment: This is the first album of the new Antarctica series "Flemish Music Heritage" as well as the first volume out of 3 albums dedicated to�Ryelandt's piano music.

First recording by a youngest piano duo of sisters, who already won several competition. The recording is a real business card with music by Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Piazzolla. Technically impeccable and full of energy, they convey to the audience the enthralling emotions of Liszt and Rachmaninoff piano duo masterpieces.

Cross-Genre Fusion: Stagioni transcends musical boundaries, seamlessly blending classical, jazz, blues, and rock elements. Mayke's composition acts as a bridge between classical traditions and diverse musical worlds, offering a symphonic ode to life and nature through four distinct seasons.�Versatile Sound Exploration: Mayke's use of the E-cello goes beyond traditional norms, showcasing a diverse range of sounds and orchestrations.

On its first recording the Belgian ensemble Boho Strings showcases the versatility of composer Wim Henderickx, whose repertoire ranges from experiments in modernism to nearly silent transcendent soundscapes. Inasmuch as the works featured on this album are revisions of earlier work- some specifically prepared for this recording- they capture the progress in a career which spans three decades. The most audible development is Henderickx’s heightened sensitivity to inspiration from the East, which lends exoticism and the occasional melancholy to a diverse but reassuringly recognizable oeuvre. Acclaimed soloists are featured on these tracks, including Roeland Hendrikx, Valerie Debaele and Lin Chin Cheng.

IZVORA invites you to a sparkling, poetic and refined universe, surrounded by original compositions and arrangements and a sound that is sometimes intimate, and sometimes displays the virtuosity of the artists. Although we're used to accordion player Christophe Delporte magnifying the music by Astor Piazzolla, it's another, more secret fantasy, that he shares with the ex-pianist of the "Framboise Frivole". A fantasy that is sprinkled with passionate inspiration, flirting with classical, jazz, and world music. Yves Gourmeur (piano) is, above all, an eclectic piano player, but also a composer with great melodic power, and a talent for combining several musical genres. Rhonny Ventat (sax), the wind turbine of the group, seduces you with bewitching, sensual melodies, but also with improvisations that are sometimes dazzling, sometimes soothing. Together with the flawless precision of percussion player J�rome Baudart and the exceptional, smooth and caressing bass lines by Adrien Tyberghein (double bass), IZVORA takes you on a musical and sensual trip. Flamboyant, between festive delusions, tenacious rhythms and lyrical melodies; daring to improvise, this quintet with multiple influences covers our souls with weightlessness, a soft, sweet and salty kiss.

This recording is a synesthetic homage to music which explores the passion, lust, love, hallucination, and healing induced by herbs and flowers. It is a sensuous quest for the melting point at which very different repertoires and literatures dissolve into an unctuous and euphonious balsam for the mind and the soul. In it's own inimitable interdisciplinarity, the Belgian ensemble Zefiro Torna takes us from Norway to Greece, from Virgil to Emile Verhaeren, and from Hildegard von Bingen and Guillaume du Fay to music newly composed in honor of the power of plants. A truly intoxicating experience. Vocal-instrumental ensemble Zefiro Torna is reframing early music in an extraordinary way. The ensemble is a hybrid collective of musicians who are able to seamlessly shift between ancient, traditional, and jazz music.

Follow Z V E Z D O L I K I ensemble into the abdomen of Buenos Aires, and meet ill-omened Maria, born with a curse in her voice on a day when God was drunk. Seduced by tango, she is murdered, but her soul continues to roam the streets of Buenos Aires. Anti-clerical, blasphemous, potentially provocative and certainly scandalous, Maria de Buenos Aires is a forgotten "tangoperita" by Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer which translates the themes of seduction and fatality in traditional and Nuevo tango, culminating in a hymn to (supernatural) deviance, lust, and also religiosity. This is a live recording, performed in the studio and made in front of a live audience. Z V E Z D O L I K I, a chamber music ensemble initially based in the Norwegian church in Antwerp, was founded by flautist Oriana Dierinck in 2009. In it's programs, the ensemble combines well and lesser known, old and new composers and compositions. Combined with the concerts in the Norwegian church, Z V E Z D O L I K I also plays in cultural centres, on chamber music podia and classical music festivals.

This recording traces the heritage of Romanticism in postmodern times. It's vintage opener is the first Cello Sonata by Brahms, a pinnacle of unspeakable but mind-controlled beauty. Martinu's second Cello Sonata, written in American exile in 1941, revisits Brahms's old world, but with wider tonality, more expressive shifts, and the extra rhythmic pulse of Czech folk music. In Schnittke's Cello Sonata of 1978, which builds on Shostakovich's emaciated style, the ghosts of the desolate closing Largo usher in the death throes of Romanticism. This is a captivating album that draws it's fascination not from the uniformity of the pieces included, but from their distinct differences. Born in Poland, Kacper Nowak began playing the cello at the age of eight. A year later, he was the laureate of the Liezen Cello Competition in Austria and entered the Fryderyk Chopin School in Poznan, in the class of Danuta Taczanowska. Having won several national and international competitions, he became a member of the National Foundation for Gifted Children. Since September 2014 Kacper has been studying at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, under the direction of Gary Hoffman where he received a scholarship by Haas-Teichen.

This new project presents three composers, about a century apart, sharing their own way of searching for colors and how to express them. These four compositions for cello and piano explore just as many ways of performing: an original work on gut strings and with the piano of the composer, a short piece for piano in a transcription for cello and piano, a wide-ranging composition for cello and piano with preparations, and finally, a work for cello, piano, and electronics. This is a century in color, so it seems, as these works are an example of how music has evolved in the past 100 years utilizing the same two instruments. Benjamin Glorieux is a cellist, conductor and composer. As a pedagogue, he works regularly with MATRIX Leuven and was invited by Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen as a cello-teacher for specialization in contemporary repertoire.

When we play music, we listen to the passages that inspire us, and we listen for emotion. These passages sometimes stay with us in the form of indelible memories, if we hear them at the right time and in the right place. Through experiences like these, music speaks to us and becomes part of our lives. For Waldo Geuns, one such unforgettable musical work is Goyescas by the Spanish composer Enrique Granados. He gives voice to love in all it's joyful and challenging moments in this, his greatest piano suite. Granados uses the titles and the scenographic notes in the score to illustrate how two lovers make overtures to each other as they dance, how their relationship blossoms even as it weathers darker days, until fate ultimately takes it's toll and one of the lovers passes away, leaving the other behind with beautiful memories. Granados, like Rachmaninov, was one of the last great pianist-composers. His mastery of the piano can be heard in his exceptional virtuosity and lyricism.

Classical Music

This album marks the second release on Antartica Records. Mese en Concert captures the live thrill of utterly refined music making in the salons of the French connoisseurs. Soetkin Elbers is proving herself as one of the most prominent rising sopranos. Elbers is a "jack of all trades" as her vast repertoire includes operas, oratorios, church cantatas, contemporary music, lieder and solo baroque chamber cantatas.

Four Aces Guitar Quartet combines classical masterpieces and arrangements of traditional folk and pop music. If previous album Odyssee was the story of a five-year journey as an ensemble, then For Aces not only continues that journey, but it chooses a new adventurous path with compositions especially written for this cd. The composers with whom the quartet collaborated are Clarice Assad, Adam Clarke, Nuccio D’Angelo, Nejc Kuhar, Patrick Roux, Harry Sacksioni, Alain Selhorst, and Johannes Moller. The Four Aces Guitar Quartet was formed in 2008 when four Belgian classical guitar players met at the international Guitar-Symposium in Iserlohn. Their first concert was part of a graduation project where they overwhelmed the audience as well as the jury with a boldly chosen program, great virtuosity and a richness of color and musicality. Over the years the quartet has played concerts in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany and China, and in 2011 they were the first guitar ensemble ever to play the semifinals of the International Chamber Music Competition in Illzach, France.

The project centers around Eddy Vanoosthuyse's clarinet artistry, showcasing a personalized and immersive musical experience. There is a unique and reciprocal connection between Eddy Vanoosthuyse as a clarinetist and the contemporary Belgian clarinet repertoire, forming the heart of the 'Belgian Clarinet Heritage'. The artist's lifelong fascination with Belgian and Flemish music speaks to a deep-rooted passion and commitment to the local musical heritage.

If Eastern art music has a folk heart, its arteries are Roma and Klezmer sounds. From the orientalist imagination of Glazunov, the Jewish adoption of Prokofiev, the Uzbek inspiration of Khachaturian, to the Romani-Hungarian roots of Kokai and the Balkanism of Jan van der Roost: all composers on this disc build on the same toolbox of themes and techniques, and they all rely on the clarinet as the ultimate interpreter of this lore. Acknowledged and exquisitely performed by the Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble.

Imaginary journeys are a recurring theme in the works of composer George De Decker. For this full-length concert, De Decker drew inspiration from René Daumal's unfinished novel 'Le Mont Analogue' (1908-1944). Daumal once wrote,"Climbing the summit serves only one purpose: the adventure of the unknown," a sentiment that could well serve as a motto for all art. Harp, accordion, euphonium and double bass are combined with live electronics: an unusual, colourful, exciting cross-pollination. Five young, eminent musicians engage in dialogue with a sophisticated sound band at each concert. Their musical score, however, remains open to improvisation, allowing them to explore a wide range of tones, including vocal and instrumental sounds, natural acoustics, and computer-assisted sound manipulations.