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Sydney Operahouse 🇦🇺welcomes exceptional Belgian pianotalent Daniel Verstappen 🎹

International PIANO DAY celebrated ✔️check!

But Daniel Verstappen is actually living International PIANO YEARS. Composing, playing and mesmerizing audiences all over the globe, his music reaches further by every concert of his Reconnection-worldtour.🎵🎶

Paying tribute to his beloved instrument, called «Soulmate🎹», Daniel keeps pushing boundaries. Partners-in-rhyme 🎶like fiddlefairies 🎻Marina Barskaya & Beth Giorgiou accompany him near some of the world’s most famous landmarks.

From Harpa Reykyavik last fall and the fairytale-like Rudolfinum in Prague just last March, Daniel is now headed to Sydney Opera House this early spring.

While beautiful but fragile scenery often plays a major part in music and video’s by Daniel and his team, the audience is always in for an amazing journey 🎶.

ArtistCongratz
Picture by Lauren Pletinckx

Many highlights in his career these past few years call for even more spectacular celebrations 🔛stage and 🔛line.

Stunning audio & video performances keep rhyming spectacular scenery with powerful pianoplay.

At a press conference earlier this year at Havenhuis Antwerp, Daniel presented a view behind the scenes & making of his latest video Ice on Fire, a co-production with Marina Barskaya and Amine Dukali (picture by Lauren Pletinckx)
Daniels host for the PRESS conference: Belgian singer and presenter Amaryllis Temmerman

Whether his notes 🎶shine underneath Swedish northern lights or above seismic activity in Iceland, Daniel always manages to share his soft spot for the environment through pianomusic. Watch Daniel’s latest video and track Ice on Fire 🔛YouTube⤵️

❄️🔥

Happy to host Daniels Documentary “Bridge between Cultures” in 2023, ArtistCongratz got a major scoop about some highlights already in the making back then.

🎙️
Relive some magic moments with ArtistCongratz interviewing a composer and pianist breaking through on stages worldwide today 🌎🎼

And now an ultimate moment -one of many still to come but unique none the less- has almost arrived! This Sunday April 7th a childhoodwish will come true for Daniel…playing far far away from his home country 🇧🇪🇦🇺, inside the iconic Sydney Operahouse, building new bridges down under 🙌

New Zealand is also on the schedule, check all tourdates https://www.danielverstappen.com/en/tourdates

More major stops lay ahead after Australia and New Zealand…Ghent Handelsbeurs as a home run on May 26th and then off to Kennedy Center Washington and…🥁🎹Carnegie Hall New York 🗽🎹 in June.

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ 𝒜𝓇𝓉𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒞𝑜𝓃𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓉𝓏 𝓂𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓃𝑒𝒾𝑔𝒽𝒷𝑜𝓇𝒽𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓌 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝒻𝒾𝓇𝓈𝓉 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹…🍏𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓎 𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉𝑒𝒹… ✍️🎙️♥

🎹🎵🎻
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Oscars outsiderpreview 🎥🎞️

Ready for my favourite prime time of the year? And hopefully yours as well🙃

Yay🙌 It’s…OSCARTIME🎬🎦🎥🎞️

Unfortunately no fellow Belgians nominated at this 96th edition of the Academy Awards. No worries ArtistCongratz has some foreign favourites to share with you. Amidst the Barbenheimer frenzy there is one particular underdog or outsider we’d like to cheer for. The nomination of “Past Lives” by Celine Song is so well deserved.

The catchy last name of the director couldn’t be more appropriate. She truly made a movie like a love song. 🎵

This is an absolute must see till The very End. The baseline of this gem? “InYun”, which means providence or fate in Korean.

Reality and imagination rule side by side in this heartbreaking, semi-autobiographical universal lovestory about what could have been for two childhood sweethearts. So many of these characters’ words and lines remain left unspoken in a way rarely seen before.

Fandango’s Oscarpredictions in CBSnews do not mention “Past Lives”, but ArtistCongratz does 🙂

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/oscar-predictions-2024/
Ready for Oscarnight ✍️
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Magritte rules…in London 🖼️and Brussels 🎞️

While Magrittes masterpiece “l’Ami Intime” is being auctioned at Christies London for over 39 million Euro’s, awards in Frenchspeaking Belgian cinema bearing the iconic artists name are about to be distributed.

This shiny silver trophy called Magritte du Cinéma does the master honour, whom was passionate by motion pictures

Yes it’s that time of the year again!

Ensor, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild check✔️

Oscar’s just around the corner but first Les Magrittes du Cinéma 2024 are about to land into the studio’s or homes of a brandnew generation of talented Belgian filmmakers near Brussels this Saturday.

Augure, Baloji’s masterpiece on which we shed our bloggers light at Filmfest Ghent some posts ago is nominated several times in different categories.

Augure; Omen to the Academy?🎞

But competition remains though. From “Dalva” for instance, this Cannes and FFO selected film by Emmanuelle Nicot about a twelve year old girl and her particular story ⤵️

Dalva is 12 years old but dresses, puts on makeup and lives like a woman. One evening, she is suddenly removed from her father's home. At first revolted and completely incomprehensible, she will meet Jayden, an educator, and Samia, a teenager with a strong character. A new life then seems to be offered to Dalva, that of a young girl of her age.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6IAtn9Ue3bg

Also nominated for best Flemish film: 🎬Wil by Tim Mielants based upon the book by Jeroen Olyslaegers, 🎬Débâcle by Veerle Baetens based upon the book “Het smelt” by Lize Spit, 🎬Luka (Jessica Woodworth) and last but not least 🎬Holly by Fien Troch, which we wrote about last fall.

Congratz to ALL nominees 🎥⤵️

https://www.lesmagritteducinema.com/nominations.php?lang=fr
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Unheimlich: found in translation 🎶 by ODIL🎼ft. Nina Kortekaas 🎤

Let’s shed some light on the latest project of a remarkable Swiss composer-storyteller based in Brussels. To ArtistCongratz he comes across far from scary… nevertheless the music we are talking about is called “Unheimlich” (scary in German but meaning much more) The third album written by Camille-Alban Spreng’s ODIL is the first one ft. Nina Kortekaas.

Triggered to know the story behind it, we had an inspiring chat with Camille 🎙️
Camille Alban Spreng: Unheimlich is a funny word actually. It doesn’t have any real translation, in English nor French. The basic idea of the album is trying to translate this word into music. It describes a feeling you might know and yet sometimes you might not be able to grasp it. Very strange.

AC: Something mysterious, unexplainable?

Camille: You could say that yes. Actually the term was invented by Sigmund Freud to describe the feeling when something comes from your subconsciousness. The right to your subconsciousness is triggered by something you see or hear. You know what is happening but at the same time it feels very strange…a little bit like a déjà vu or even a premonition.

AC: How do you start to translate something like this into music?

Camille: Fascinated by the work of the great American poet Allen Ginsberg from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, I wanted to bring a kind of hommage to his writing.✍️ His work also has this kind of strangeness, weirdness to it. And at the same time it’s deeply rooted into our daily life.

As I was writing 🎼, these two ideas were living at the same time. There are actually a lot of links between the poetry of Ginsberg and this captivating word I wanted to translate into music. Our mission with Nina is to make all this more accessible through the songs.🎵

ArtistCongratz 🔝 selection surely includes “Daily Wonder”

Camille: That’s a funny one. It’s a ballad and a long mellow song. The only one on the album. The first idea of this song was to adapt a Ginsberg-poem but in the end I chose another direction and wrote the lyrics myself. The idea behind the song ? What if we could see everything in the world and witness the daily life of whom ever…or looking at the daily life of an animal or a plant for instance.🌱

AC: A mysterious animal actually features on the cover of your album…

Camille: That’s exactly what I wanted…
somewhat unheimlich…🐾
…just so you know, it’s actually a dalmation;)
Want to witness some «🎶Unheimlich🎵» manoeuvres first hand? ODIL is playing live this Friday February 23 @Rataplan – Borgerhout/Antwerp https://www.rataplanvzw.be/e/odil

To Be Continued

 https://link.newsdistribution.be/Unheimlich
press pics: Alexander Popelier
Nice talking to you, Camille ✍️
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Magic moments @ the MIA’s

Halfway through Belgian music week ArtistCongratz would like to shed some more spotlight 🔛our national music scene. Once more lots of international potential is detected🎶🙌

After ESNS, the annual awardceremony in the Dutchspeaking part of Belgium is on our schedule. They are called The MIA’s, short for Music Industry Awards. This year they were held in Antwerp. Organized by vi.be (supporting our Belgian music scene💪🎼) and national channel VRT.

  • Join us for some captivating images of absolute highlights⤵️ during the show:
After last years “natural high” on top of the Atomium in Brussels by Oscar & The Wolf, meet this year’s showstarter: Gustaph, border breaking performer/creator in 2023. “Because of you” keeps inspiring audiences and artists, The song turns out as one of the most successful Belgian entries of the Eurovision Song Contest. (Picture by Jokko/VRT)
Meet multi-talent Pommelien Thys, hot in Flanders because of her own unique artistic approach. Besides acting in different series, writing her own songs and performing them with panache, she also designs her own ecofriendly, conscious 🌱fashion 🔛 stage. She wins no less than five Music Industry Awards. CONGRATZ indeed Pommelien!
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
(pic by Jokko/VRT)
Pommelien in concert 🎵 💃🩰
The MIA “Breakthrough of 2023” goes to thankful “nominee-along-such-talented-fellow-artists” Aron Blommaert. Nicely presented by Miss Loena Hendrickx, European Champion, our national pride in Figureskating 🥇⛸️ (pic by Jokko/VRT)
And this long braided multi-awarded beauty waltzes through lalaland and “Different Waters📀” by the name of Coely, our international hip hop pride. She was handed her prize by a famous Belgian goofy influencer called Average Rob⤵️🦸🏻(pic by Jokko/VRT)
Average Rob; not quite that average where Marvel’s characters are concerned
And this is Portlands Jenthe Pironet (best alternative 🎸) on the left, alongside Metejoor, also nominated in different categories🙌🎵🎶Jenthe also wins the award for the most heartwarming speech, dedicating his prize to medical science and care ❤️‍🩹 (pic by Jokko/VRT)
Rapper winner Brihang definitely has a heart for all things going wrong in the world 🌎 ⬇️ “make music not war & cease all fires.”
Hear his Peace pleas(e)🎶 ✌️(pic by Jokko/VRT)
Another moving moment highlighting the ceremony. All time Flemish audience favourite Hugo Sigal dedicates his award for best (Flemish) popular to his late partner on and off stage Nicole, who sadly passed away too soon. (pic by Jokko/VRT)
A lifetime of folky music is crowned🤴🏻🎶. With lyrics involving all our daily concerns like bread 🥖, spoons 🥄 and… WiFi of course. Bart Peeters gets his special award by another national icon Raymond van het Groenewoud. (pic by Jokko/VRT)
CONGRATZ to all winners and nominees 🙌, check all of them 🔛 https://mias.vrt.be
(pic by Jokko/VRT)

𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙖 𝘀𝗻𝗮𝗽𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝘇-𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘇 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 🎶📸

Kate Ryan, iconic artist who also defended our colours at Eurovision back in 2006 🇧🇪
remember her famous knee move while bringing her now-evergreen “Je t’adore”🎵♥️
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3JHnre0q3ow
And this far-from-freaky-fellow I interviewed more than a decade ago with his band Freaky Age. Cheers to Lenny Crabbé👋🥂, son of Luc Crabbé (Telstar/Betty Goes Green)
Meet Lenny number two :), also a very gifted musician
And this must be the most famous soundman🎤in Flanders. In the picture a lot but always his likable self. Whom everybody knows simply by his first name: Pascal.
And last but not least a selfie 🤳 with these multitalented ladies, pianist/designer Tylaine (in the middle) and singer Zohra🎶🎤
How about a red wall instead
of the regular carpet…
Don’t you just love this quote from «The Voice»?
An absolute work of art adorning this wall of the locker room @ music lab Trix Antwerp
Thank you VRT, TRIX, Sportpalace & VI.Be for including ArtistCongratz 🎶
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And the award 🎶goes to…the quirkiest winner in MME history💥 👱🏻‍♀️🏆🇫🇷

A whole 🆕 generation of artists keeps moving Europe to even newer levels. Witness their beauty first hand with us at the headquarters of emerging music talents, performing @ ESNS from all over the continent. On Thursday, Stadsschouwburg Groningen hosted the 20th edition of the Music Moves Europe Awards.

Blown away by this 2️⃣0️⃣th Anniversary-year’s winner, our pics and reels will tell you more than a thousand words. Don’t take ours for it… See for yourselves 🕶️

A Star is Born, Zaho de Zagazan Moves. In more ways than one… Quirky Zaho offers her audience a live and kicking therapy-on-and-off-stage. Want to quit smoking in a way you never attempted before? Or chase away sadness with captivating ballads, pumping beats and groovy lyrics? 🎤

En français s’il vous plait 🇫🇷🎶
(picture by yours truly)
From Groovy to Dreamy…💭
ArtistCongratz meets Song Lines Magazine & Euronews 👋Nice to meet you Emma & Jonathan!
Zaho receiving her grand jury award by…🥁🥁🥁…Mister Jools Holland, presented by musician Giulia Grispino (Sans Soucis)
Zaho (full name: Zaho-Agathe Le Moniès de Sagazan), on stage she gives it her all and more…find out frontrow/first hand how her debut album « La Symphonie des Éclairs » saw the light of day. Inspired by her own sensitivity she manages to translate struggles into healing. Song by song, like one called « Tristesse »
A « (non) smoking tribute »
Zaho about a major discovery in life🎹
Zaho’s thank you note
to her partners in rhyme 🎶 🥁🎹

Many MME-awarded artists have preceded her into stardom… Cheers to her, Dua Lipa, Stromae, Meduza and many more. And by all means also to their iconic master of ceremony Jools Holland📻

Flash-back 🔛two decades of Music Moves Europe Awards which actually started as the Europe Border Breaking Awards in 2004. Happy Anniversary! Congratz!
Congratz to all the nominees, blog you later 👋🎶✍️
discover all 🔛https://mmeawards.eu/en/

ESNS stories to be continued…Coming 🆙next: Waterbaby👸🏾🇸🇪, Ralphie Choo🎶🇪🇸, Arny Margret 🇮🇸…and of course more Booming artists from my native country 🇧🇪🙌 celebrating Belgian Music week!

Did she just stagedive right behind me? 💥🥳
Go go go, Zaho!👱🏻‍♀️
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ESNS Day 1️⃣🎧 It’s snowing flakes and sounds🌨️🎶

This January we report from 🆙 north at ESNS, in a snowy Groningen way high in the Netherlands 🇪🇺🇳🇱Flakes of new sounds are coming (y)our way.

ArtistCongratz was here once before. In 2020, right before Covid hit, we spotted different careers throughout Europe in motion here, like Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul from Belgium 🇧🇪, Perfect Son from Poland 🇵🇱, Meduza from Italy 🇮🇹, Karina from Finland🇫🇮 and many more.

We saw them first at ESNS:)

What better way to get you acquainted with 🆕 artists crossing our paths in 2024 than by images and sounds in all the right venues. From scintillating churches to trendy discotheques and theatres throughout a captivating city of music lovers. 🏙️🎶

Hosted by the most welcoming shiny happy helping people. Like Nikkie, Renée and Jet from ESNS. Or Myrthe & Bert, picture-perfect-personal native guides to our first concert this year.⤵️

Who needs Google Maps🗺️ when you run into the kindest personal native streetguides. Thank you Myrthe & Bert! 🧤👋

« Where do we begin? » A track signed Michael Karkousse also known from the dance formation Goose, lead us towards to our second venue. But before Simplon we made a stop @ Lutherchurch to witness some female empowerment by strings and vocals called Bluai from Belgium ⤵️

Bluai in concert @ Lutherse kerk 💒January 17th
Simply Simplon 🎶, up- and downstairs 🎤💥
Michael Karkousse playing @ Simplon Main – January 17th
Pull some strings & Pump those beats
Caught 🆙 in the moment 🙌

Make sure to check our Stories 🔛socials for even more footage (tania_gh_ram) & ArtistCongratz 🔛TikTok 🎶

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Happy Newyear from the (he)art of Europe !🇪🇺🎵🖼️

Quittersday today? Not where the Artists in our spotlight are concerned!

But first things first. ArtistCongratz wishes all of you fine readers a Happy healthy Creative 2024 with lots of fascinating and inspiring blogposts regarding talented people in different artforms.

Before we are headed North to spot & congratulate rising talent 🎵at ESNS in the Netherlands next week, what better place to kick off our year/Belgian presidency than in the very heart of Europe.

Did you know that the European Parliament regularly organises art-exhibitions in their office buildings?

Last Tuesday we rediscovered artworks of a unique artist we interviewed before in 2022. (Picture by Dorothy Declerck)

https://artistcongratz.home.blog/2022/09/18/antoine-waterkeyn-🧑🏻🎨-makes-viewers-watch-beyond-their-retina-👁/

Place to be? The Spinelli building in Brussels, where MEP Beatrice Covassi hosted this remarkable exhibition with the characteristic narrative paintings of Antoine Waterkeyn⤵️ inspired by “antiheroes” throughout history.

Biblical inspiration with Samson Et Dalila
A talk with MEP Beatrice Covassi & the artist
Napoleon revisited by Antoine Waterkeyn
Special thanks to interior designer Dorothy for the spot 🔛picture(s)
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Starring by the sea ✨🎼

Last Thursday we went anything but WRONG. Yet this is the title of a worldly Belgian popsong, now eternalized in the same Hall of Fame, we also blogged about last year, traditionally hosted by the seaboard 🌊🎵@Kursaal Ostend.

The concept: one of our popular radiostations unites young and established talent in a dazzling music celebration 🏆

Picture by Jook
Scroll to discover our amazing photo gallery of Belgian music legends🎤like this incredible productive composer and talented producer Steve Willaert🎹⤵️🎖

CongratZ are also in order for Novastar aka Joost Zweegers🎶, singer songwriter of “Wrong” among other evergreens, maybe yet to come in this very Hall of Fame⭐️

(Not) Novastarstruck 👩‍🎤
Striking poses with the enchanting 🎶Joost Zweegers🙌
Before Wrong, best served with few introduction according to the Singersongwriter, became an instant hit in 2000, the song remained hidden for many years. Luckily we can give it its well deserved evergreen status 23 years later.
Besides for Steve and Joost, CongratZ retrostyle are also in order for Margriet Hermans, leading lady in more ways then one, as well as Wim Soutaer & his all time local classic
“Allemaal”
📻📺🎙
Meet Steve Willaert, one of our most productive and versatile composers. 🎶🎖Want to witness his high soundwizard-level ? Go see the latest Studio 💯 musical
RED STAR LINE 🚢 or watch this small appetizer of soundtracks ⤵️, played by himself 🎹
Spotlights 🔛maestro Willaert
Steve also delivers
breathtaking songs in musicals like this one: Red Star Line
And accompanies young talents like these two 👯‍♀️ the performance of CAPPAERT was a tribute to their maestro
A moving tribute for Lifetime achievement awarded Margriet, by her lovely also very talented daughter Celien 🎤♥️
Crowd picture perfect
by Stef Keynen/VRT
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Augure; Omen to the Academy?🎞

It’s D-Day for Baloji and his first feature film Augure. In cinema’s across Belgium this November 15th.

Just last month, Augure was presented at Filmfest Ghent in the official selection, following Cannes in Spring.

Augure, being the French word for omen, tells the story of exactly that.

A small omen to the members of The Academy perhaps ? A good one.

Our filmmakers won’t budge. Once more presenting a fine opportunity to “Oscarize” a filmgem by a multitalented Belgian artist.

Omen To Be Continued

ArtistCongratz
Director Baloji and his main cast at the Belgian premiere of Augure/Omen at this years 50th edition of Filmfest Ghent

Four characters, considered witches or wizards by their families and communities, see their paths cross in a magical-realist Congo. Only through mutual aid and reconciliation can they escape the curse that rests on them.
Cast: Lucie Debay, Marc Zinga, Eliane Umuhire