LOVE IN THE LAND OF MEADOWS
Musica Divina 2025 is dedicated to the healing power of love. The place where it happens is the Land of Meadows: a lyrical name for the Kempen, derived from the Latin ‘campina’. Many aspects of love will be conveyed in music during the festival, from the Canticum Canticorum by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina to ‘Minne’ in the work of Hadewijch and Hildegard von Bingen or the passion of Astor Piazzolla.
Deep listening is one of the aspects closely associated with Musica Divina. The writer Erwin Mortier believes that the willingness to listen is also a form of love. He describes it as “paying attention, listening closely, devoting more than merely our ears to expanding the soul with another being, not necessarily a human.” In the same book about love, he also says that shaping our existential scream into music might well be the essence of love.