La Petite Bande

Our wishes for 2021

Dear friends known and unknown,

A famous Italian philosopher from the Renaissance once wrote down these beautiful thoughts:

Never give up, because fortune walks crooked, unknown paths,
and where they lead one does not know -
that is why one should keep hoping and never give up,
no matter how critical the situation is
and no matter how great the need.

This strength we wish to you all in this peculiar Christmas time,
and at the transition towards 2021.

Dear friends known and unknown,

A famous Italian philosopher from the Renaissance once wrote down these beautiful thoughts:

Never give up, because fortune walks crooked, unknown paths,
and where they lead one does not know -
that is why one should keep hoping and never give up,
no matter how critical the situation is
and no matter how great the need.

This strength we wish to you all in this peculiar Christmas time,
and at the transition towards 2021.

More than ever, we will have to find the reason to celebrate
within ourselves.
That is, to lift up our hearts and minds in these days...
It can help immensely,
to turn our eyes and attention to Beauty and Art -
In short:
seek the silence of the Source, and enjoy!

With our warmest wishes,

Sigiswald Kuijken and Marleen Thiers

A new CD by La Petite Bande ! Bach Cantatas BWV 72 , 156 and 92

Dear friends and fans of La Petite Bande,

We would like to make a positive note in these corona times. At the end of November 2020 a new CD of La Petite Bande was released by the German CD company ACCENT, on which 3 beautiful cantatas by J.S.Bach can be heard: BWV 72, 156 and 92.
Although in a strict sense it is not typical "Christmas music", this Bach recording will certainly contribute heartwarmingly and thoughtfully to a deeper experience of this corona-coloured end-of-year period of 2020 and of the months to come ...

This new CD from LPB is available on the market - but can be delivered quickly via LPB itself, at the price of 26 € (shipping costs are included).
You can order by paying into the account of Votre Petite Bande:
IBAN: BE 30 4310 6868 0111 (not .... .... 6888 etc , as initially indicated by mistake on this page, sorry!)
BIC: KREDBEBB
Please clearly state your postal address when ordering ! (If you would like an invoice, please also mention 'invoice').

This recording was made at the beginning of February 2020 in the somewhat futuristic theatre in Blaibach (Bavaria - you can see it via Google as soon as you enter "Blaibach"...) which was built in 2014 on the initiative of the German baryton Thomas Bauer. You can also listen to Thomas Bauer on this CD: he participated as a soloist and bass in the vocal quartet !

Finally, due to the corona crisis, this recording was the last activity of LPB this year 2020: all the other projects of 2020 were cancelled one by one from March onwards, or postponed to a later date, which often had to be cancelled again ...
The future of cultural life all over the world remains uncertain ... La Petite Bande has enough plans, the audience will be able to enjoy our performances again as soon as possible!

EXTRAORDINARY ACTION

To support the music and the musicians in this CORONA time:
24 hours non stop Palestrina-music in the Cathedral of Augsburg !

On the 20th and 21st of November (the eve of St Cecilia, patron saint of music !) from 6pm until 6 pm, Thomas E. Bauer, well-known German singer and driving force behind the unique Konzerthaus in Blaibach (near Regensburg, Bavaria) organizes from the splendid Cathedral in AUGSBURG a "streaming" with live-performances of works by Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 -1597)

We, Sigiswald Kuijken and Marleen Thiers sympathise wholeheartedly with this initiative!

In a very special article at the request of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Thomas Bauer published on November 1st a highly original and symbolic call to "save music (and concert life) in this so-called corona crisis"...

He alluded to the tradition which holds that the composer Pierluigi Palestrina "saved" art music in the Roman Catholic Church from ruin, during the Council of Trent (1562): at that time there were many cardinals who wanted to ban the traditional polyphony from the church services because (according to them) the religious texts could not be understood well enough by the believers, because of the complicated composition-style. Palestrina then performed his Missa Papae Marcelli in the Sistine Chapel, and the genial combination of simplicity and art in this work led them back to better insight ...

Palestrina as the saviour of music: this idea wants to be a symbol here - this manifestation will be one continuous Hymn to music, and to the Love of music! Work of Palestrina and his contemporaries will resonate during 24 hours in the vaults of the Augsburg Cathedral, and via streaming, the audiences (evening) will be able to experience it from their living room...

The link to follow the streaming is:
https://app.idagio.com/de/live/event/palestrina-a-global-prayer-for-the-people
One must register with Email address and a password (it is free of charge).

I myself, Sigiswald Kuijken and my wife Marleen Thiers have responded enthusiastically to Thomas' request for cooperation. In this Palestrina-feast from the Cathedral of Augsburg, with the cooperation of several German vocal ensembles, we will twice provide an instrumental intermezzo with works from Palestrina's time:

November 20th , 8:45 - 9:00 pm (evening)
Sigiswald Kuijken (violin) and Marleen Thiers (viola)
5 Fantasias à 2 by Thomas Morley (London, 1595)
November 21st , 11:30 - 11:45 am (morning)
Sigiswald Kuijken (Viola da Gamba) and Olga Watts (harpsichord)
8 Recercadas by Diego Ortiz (Roma, 1553)

We wish you a lot of viewing and listening pleasure !

CORONA - ANNULATIONS ...

As was to be expected, also La Petite Bande has been (and still is) very severely hit by the international wave of annulations of cultural events, provoked by the Corona crisis. Everywhere, organisors see their programmation for the season 2020-2021 seriously perturbed . In fact, LPB lost all of its concerts since March 2020...

- The Bach-concert for the CC in Wezembeek-Oppem (near Brussels), including concertos for harpsichord(s) and strings as well as a violin-concerto, was originally planned for March 2020, then postponed to June 13th, and then once more to January 9th 2021... Also this January date has finally been canceled: the program is is now scheduled for September 30th 2021 - The CD-recording of this program for ACCENT will be made in the days following this concert.

- Of the magnificent cycle of 4 week-ends with Bach-Cantatas which the Konzerthaus in Baibach (Bavaria) scheduled with LPB in 2020, the first (in February) has been a very beautiful experience, resulting in the CD recording of 3 Cantates (BWV 72, 156 and 92). This CD just came out January 2021(see advertisement on this site)
The three following weekends however, originally scheduled in July, September and December '20, had to be canceled (including the corresponding CD recording after each period) because of the Bavarian corona regulations ... We are very sad about this: it was a great project !

- The LPB Summer Academy in Italy (Collevecchio, in Lazio), scheduled in August 2020, could not be organized in the given circumstances ... But we plan to have it happen from July 17th to August 1st 2021, with the program which was announced for the summer 2020

- LPB's three Matthew-Passion performances by LPB in Japan , first scheduled in beginning November 2020 and the postponed to the end of January 2021, and then again canceled , are rescheduled for ...2024 before Easter.
But : a good news from Japan: from October 1st to 10th , 2022 , LPB will make a tour in Japan with Bach's Brandenburg concertos nrs 3 to 6 + the trio sonate from Bach's "Musical Offering" .

In the middle of the current difficult situation,we continue to think in a positive way. We hope that this worldwide crisis, in spite of all the damage already felt, may nevertheless also give birth to new and strong fruits - thanks to an important change in the collective consciousness provoked by 'Sancta Corona' ...!

In the field of chamber music conserts - mostly by members of the Kuijken family- there has been considerable change as well - please consult the calender on this website...

Also Sigiswalds engagements as an individual musician , with other institutes or orchestras,, could not escape from the corona-crisis :
- The 3 performances in Israël of Bach's Matthew-Passion with Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra led by Sigiswald , in this March (2021) are postponed to March 2022.
- The 3 concerts in the Netherlands with Students of The Hague Conservatory and members of the Orchestra of the 18th century, also in this march 2021 have been replaced by a professional video-recording of the program in the conservatory during the same dates... On the program: Haydn's orchestral version of 'Seven last words of Jesus Christ "and the symphony nr 99 by the same composer.

New book: “MY MOZART ... HIS MAGIC FLUTE”

Sigiswald and Mozart became a unity in this book.
Mozarts Magic Flute is being revealed here in its essence by Sigiswald, in a loving and simple way - without over-intellectual reflexions, nor trendy ‘new interpretations’.

More information

Message by Sigiswald Kuijken

As you might know, for reasons that are not properly understood the Flemish Government terminated its guaranteed annual financial support for La Petite from January 1st 2013: we are the only Belgian orchestra to be treated in this manner, despite our international reputation and extensive discography and contribution to Belgian, European and indeed worldwide musical life. The loss of Government financial support has put La Petite Bande in serious financial difficulties, and we are all working very hard to raise money to ensure that our unique orchestra can continue its work. We are sure that we will succeed, but to do so we need your support, to ensure that we will be able to continue our work and make music!
More information to support the orchestra, as explained by Sigiswald, can be found here:

Joining the new 'LPB Friend group'