"Embrace the music with openness. Trust the composers, performers… and yourself! It often leads to exciting and transformative experiences."
Tectonics: Xenakis & Scelsi
discover the first Brussels edition of Tectonics, a trailblazing festival for new and experimental music
Brussels
Flagey
The human voice at its most exposed: raw, intense, and stripped of language.
The human voice at its most exposed: raw, intense, and stripped of language. In this programme, Xenakis and Scelsi return to the essence of vocal music: a living sound sculpture, shaped by shifting textures, sonic fields and massed vocal gestures. Not a narrative, but a physical listening experience, grounded in breath, space and the power of sound.
Tectonics is a trailblazing festival for new and experimental music, launched in 2012 by conductor Ilan Volkov – a true musical omnivore, driven by insatiable curiosity and an eclectic ear.
Since its inception, the festival has become one of the world’s most acclaimed platforms for adventurous listening – celebrating bold sounds, boundary-pushing experiments, and music that dares to explore the unknown.
In June 2026, the Brussels Philharmonic and Ictus bring Tectonics to Brussels for the very first time, transforming every corner of Flagey into a vibrant hub of sonic exploration for two unforgettable days.
concert
programme
Iannis Xenakis Serment (1981)
Giacinto Scelsi Yliam, per coro femminile (1964)
Giacinto Scelsi Tre Canti Sacri (1958)
Iannis Xenakis Nuits (1968)
concert without interval pauze (40')
part of Tectonics Festival
artists
James Wood conductor
Vlaams Radiokoor
with the support of Beside Tax Shelter and the Belgian Tax Shelter
line-up
concerts
∙ 17:15 Ictus: Fabio Machiavelli (free)
∙ 18:00 Vlaams Radiokoor: Xenakis & Scelsi (€15)
∙ 19:00 Jennifer Torrence (€15)
∙ 19:00 Hoda Siahtiri + Shaahin Peymani (free)
∙ 20:30 Brussels Philharmonic: Maya Verlaak & Cassandra Miller (€15)
∙ 22:00 Ictus: Fabio Machiavelli (free)
expo & installations
∙ Sonic Harvest: David Dubois, Alice Van Biesen, Livia Slegers
∙ Expo Baudouin Oosterlynck: interactive listening instruments
∙ Sound Installation: Fabio Machiavelli
location
Flagey, Studio 4 ∙ Place Sainte-Croix, 1050 Ixelles ∙ how to reach the venue
tickets
€15 (standard) ∙ €30 (day pass)
Iannis Xenakis
Nuits is Xenakis in his purest form. Drawing on his long nights as a political prisoner—filled with the harsh cries of guards and the screams of tortured companions—he strips vocal music of every familiar shape of language. Nuits is not a narrative, but an intense exploration of sound: darkness, fear, and the raw power of the human voice, rooted in Xenakis’s personal history and his mathematical vision.
For Serment, based on the Hippocratic Oath, Xenakis weaves a vivid tapestry of refined vocal textures: solo voices, shifting sonic blocks, and broad repetitive gestures form the framework of a work that is austere, yet remarkably powerful and direct.
Giacinto Scelsi
The music of the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi was first performed live—and thus truly discovered—only in the late 1980s, shortly before his death. Convinced that each listener would perceive the same note differently depending on their position and distance from an instrument, Scelsi considered performances unnecessary.
In Yliam, Scelsi applies his characteristic focus on a single pitch or sonic core to a vocal mass. The work becomes a living sound sculpture, constantly breathing and transforming. His earlier Tre Canti Sacri already explores this technique. Nourished by religious and transcendental themes, it is an acoustic meditation in which the human voice becomes a medium of sacred intensity.