Flagey unveils its 2025–26 season

Can music be a place, a catalyst, a force of resistance? Flagey places this question at the heart of its 2025–26 season.

Have great composers and musicians not always countered a blind, unjust, or violent daily reality with beauty, rebellion, or solace - aspiring to uplift and reshape the world?

As part of this exploration, Flagey will retrace the career and inspirations of Arvo Pärt, on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Four concerts will be devoted to a ‘Beethoven Project’, honouring this towering figure who, in his own way, resisted and reimagined the music of his time. As a prelude to the 2027 bicentenary of the death of Beethoven, Boris Giltburg, this season’s artist in residence, will present the first part of the composers complete cycle of piano sonatas. The Busch Trio, in turn, will perform the opening instalment of the master’s full set of piano trios. Both programmes will carry over into the next season.

Belgium will reaffirm its role in musical resistance and innovation by celebrating two key figures: composer Philippe Boesmans and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. This pioneering woman, left an extraordinary legacy: the Competition, whose preliminary and semi-final rounds are hosted at Flagey.

The Brussels Jazz Festival and Flagey Piano Days—the major winter events—will once again embody the core of Flagey’s mission: bringing together great artists and young talents, and introducing unique formats.

And what better way to open the season than with an ode to resistance? Over the course of three evenings, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in Concert will be screened with a live performance by the Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Dirk Brossé (18, 19 & 20 September, 20:15).