The sharpest thread in Belgium’s concert calendar for Thursday 17 through Sunday 20 September is music built for the stage, heard through three very different formats. Antwerp receives George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with a full vocal cast; Brussels gives John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme a physical reading by dancers; Liège opens its symphonic season with Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. Each event puts a familiar score under theatrical pressure, whether through voices, choreography or the concentrated architecture of a concert programme.[1][2][3][4][5]

Gershwin arrives in Antwerp with an opera company and orchestra

Begin on Thursday at deSingel, where Chineke! Orchestra, Cape Town Opera and conductor Enrique Mazzola present Porgy and Bess in concert. The Antwerp date sits within a European tour, and the published cast identifies Siyabulela Ntlale as Porgy, Nonhlanhla Yende as Bess, Conroy Scott as Crown and Lukhanyo Moyake as Sportin’ Life. The production credits Magdalene Minnaar with staging, giving this a clear dramatic frame even in concert presentation. Gershwin’s work has long generated questions around opera, musical theatre, jazz and cultural representation; that layered history is part of the evening’s charge.[1][2]

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Coltrane’s quartet becomes four dancers

Ancienne Belgique hosts Salva Sanchis and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s A Love Supreme on both Thursday and Friday as part of its wider (John) Coltrane 100 programme. Their work, first created in 2005 and newly reworked for four young male dancers, uses Coltrane’s four-part suite as its score and structure. The central idea is unusually direct: the improvisation and composition associated with Coltrane’s Classic Quartet are carried into movement. Both evenings take place in AB Flex, arranged half standing and half seated at Rosas’s request, a setting that brings the audience physically closer to the dancers’ reading of the recording.[3][4]

Liège opens with a concerto and a Sixth Symphony

Also on Thursday, the Salle Philharmonique (OPRL) presents the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège under Lionel Bringuier for its season-opening programme. Pianist Behzod Abduraimov joins the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, followed by Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6. The pairing creates a compact historical arc: Tchaikovsky’s large-scale concerto beside a 1939 symphony whose asymmetrical three-movement design the OPRL describes as bending the expected Soviet symphonic model. The listed running time is about 90 minutes, making it a focused opening-night choice.[5]

Practical route for Thursday and Friday

deSingel lists Porgy and Bess for Thursday 17 September at 20:00. The Salle Philharmonique (OPRL) concert also begins Thursday at 20:00. Ancienne Belgique presents A Love Supreme on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 September. Check each official venue page again before travel: start times, seating configurations, availability and access information can change.[1][2][3][4][5]

Sources

  1. Chineke! Orchestra / Cape Town Opera / Enrique Mazzola: Porgy and Bess in concert — deSingel
  2. Porgy and Bess (Antwerp) — Chineke! Orchestra
  3. (John) Coltrane 100: A Love Supreme — Salva Sanchis & Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Thursday 17 September 2026 — Ancienne Belgique
  4. (John) Coltrane 100: A Love Supreme — Salva Sanchis & Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Friday 18 September 2026 — Ancienne Belgique
  5. Concert d’ouverture: Tchaïkovski / Chostakovitch — Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège