Radio Poupoule - I SOLISTI & Vlaams Radiokoor conducted by B. V. Reyn & F. Jordens & M. Cafmeyer

Eclectic music theater with Filip Jordens and Maaike Cafmeyer around Francis ‘Poupoule’ Poulenc In 1943, a plane dropped thousands of copies of Liberté, a poem by Paul Éluard, over occupied France. Francis Poulenc clandestinely composed his cantata Figure Humaine to this, a powerful ode to liberation. In 1946, the predecessor of the Vlaams Radiokoor, the choir of the public broadcaster NIR, premiered this cantata during a special broadcast on the ‘Sender Brüssel’ liberated from the Nazis. Exactly 80 years later, Filip Jordens, surrounded by the musicians of I SOLISTI and the Vlaams Radiokoor, crawls into the skin of special guest Francis Poulenc – ‘Poupoule’ for his friends – in a staged reconstruction of this radio broadcast. Maaike Cafmeyer leads the conversation as an inspired presenter. In the studio on stage, they slide together through the folds of time, dive into the musical past to then look back on it from the present, with emotional testimonies and hilarious singing together. A special way to get to know Poupoule: his kaleidoscopic oeuvre, his colorful personality, and the many unexpected musical ties with Belgium. With his wonderfully surreal Le Bal Masqué as the icing on the cake. The seasoned Poulenc fanatics of music theater collective Les Âmes Perdues, who celebrated the hypothetical 125th birthday of their favorite composer for a whole year in 2024, take the direction.