The 2024 edition will focus entirely on the Leuven Chansonnier, the Flemish masterpiece from the late fifteenth century which contains a treasure trove of polyphonic music.

When an old, unknown book was presented to the Alamire Foundation in 2015 for examination, the manuscript exceeded all expectations. With the help of various disciplines, such as musicology, heraldry, art history, textile history, and linguistics, researchers have gained an insight into the manuscript’s provenance and history in recent years. It turned out to be a late fifteenth-century songbook containing a treasure trove of polyphonic music: forty-nine French chansons, preceded by Walter Frye’s religious motet Ave regina caelorum.

The extraordinary find caused a stir in the arts and heritage world, with the chansonnier recognised as a Flemish masterpiece in 2018. The songs embody the pinnacle of fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish polyphony to French medieval lyrics, an exceptional discovery.

The small songbook was named Leuven Chansonnier, after the city where the Alamire Foundation resides and the chansonnier is kept. After a world premiere in New York and conferences, lectures, and performances in Tokyo, Ambronay, Rome, Berlin, York, and Antwerp, the Sollazzo Ensemble led by vielle player Anna Danilevskaia will bring all fifty compositions from the songbook in various line-ups to conclude this major research and recording project.

The musicians of the young vocal-instrumental Sollazzo, the ensemble currently mesmerizing the international music world, will be in residence at the House of Polyphony during the Voices of Passion festival and will perform all fifty chansons in an exceptional concert marathon.

Four unique concerts that allow you to discover a fifteenth-century musical gem note-by-note. A once-in-a-lifetime experience!