For Thursday 8 through Sunday 11 October, one of the week’s clearest local music threads runs through saxophonist Adia Vanheerentals. Her two appearances place her at opposite ends of a small but active Belgian network: first as a solitary player in Brussels, then inside a three-way Ghent bill built around adventurous listening. The connection is less a tour package than a useful glimpse of how improvised music travels here—in Belgium, through self-directed projects, temporary combinations and rooms prepared to let unfamiliar languages meet.[1][2][3]

A solo saxophone meets a New York ensemble at BOZAR

On Thursday at 19:30, Vanheerentals opens at BOZAR before Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones. BOZAR frames her set as a live translation of Taking Place, her 2025 solo album for Relative Pitch Records. The record was shaped by acoustic situations outside the studio: silo resonance, passing traffic and the sounds of a chicken coop enter the music as material for improvisation. That gives the Brussels set a strong premise: a soprano saxophone practice alert to place, texture and physical surroundings.[1][4]

The pairing sharpens that premise. Elder Ones brings Kidambi’s voice, harmonium and electronics together with saxophones, bass, drums and synthesizer; BOZAR places the group between Carnatic song, avant-garde rock and free jazz. Vanheerentals’s own work already moves across similarly porous terrain. Her official biography lists the jazz-improvisation groups Bodem, Waarlijk and Vanheerentals/Beeckaert/Lasure, alongside work with the Klinck Trio, Fire! Orchestra and Woolvs Large Ensemble. Thursday therefore presents a concise encounter between a Brussels-facing solo voice and a visiting collective with a wide, charged ensemble sound.[1][3]

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Sunday’s Ghent meeting: song forms, piano and open space

Vanheerentals resurfaces on Sunday at 17:00 with Lennert Jacobs and Thijs Troch, in a programme presented by Handelsbeurs (Ha Concerts) and Troika at Café Django. Jacobs releases experimental yet melodic electronic music as L. Jacobs, while Troch works as an improvising pianist across groups and solo settings. Their bill is titled “In search of fertile soil,” an apt description of a meeting whose interest lies in the different materials each player brings: saxophone lines, electronic-song sensibility and a pianist’s expanded instrumental palette.[2]

Taken together, these shows offer two practical entry points into Vanheerentals’s current work. Choose BOZAR on Thursday for the solo set and Elder Ones’ full-band scale; choose the Ghent afternoon for a close-range Belgian conversation across composition and improvisation. Recheck BOZAR and Handelsbeurs (Ha Concerts) official pages before leaving, since venue details, reservations and running times can change.[1][2]

Sources

  1. Adia Vanheerentals Solo - Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones — BOZAR
  2. Lennert Jacobs / Adia Vanheerenthals / Thijs Troch 11-10-26 — Ha Concerts
  3. About — Adia Vanheerentals
  4. Taking Place — Relative Pitch Records