Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

RENÉ LUSSIER & RADIOKUKAORKEST

René Lussier is a member of the older generation of Montreal Musicians and has worked with renowned contemporary improv guitarists such as Fred Frith, Marc Ribot and Eugene Chadbourne. For the Montréal festival, Vooruit has set him up with the RadioKUKAorkest, the chamber jazz ensemble with Kristof Roseeuw, Tom Wouters, and others which creates beautiful jazz miniatures.

• Who? Kristof Roseeuw previously took the Vooruit stage with Chopsticks, Baba Zula and Flat Earth Society, the big band René Lussier performed with at Vooruit’s 25th birthday party.

SAM SHALABI’S EGYPTIAN LIGHT ORCHESTRA

Sam Shalabi is a central figure on the Montreal scene. He unites musicians from all sorts of different genres. As you can hear on his latest album Eid, his music goes in all sorts of directions: from a traditional Arabic sound to prog rock and powerful improvisations. For the festival he has gathered a couple of Montreal residents such as Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, Alexandre St-Onge and Anthony Seck and Belgian musicians such as Osama Abdulrasol (Melike), Aurélie Dorzée, Joachim Badenhorst and Bart Maris (Flat Earth Society).

Press: “If you have ever been to a concert by Sam Shalabi and his men, you can only be amazed by the hypnotizing structures that they conjure up from such a wide range of instruments.” (Kindamuzik)