Clari Cantores was founded within the choir family VZW Clari Cantus in September 2014. At the request of former members and those involved in the children’s and youth choir and under the stimulating impulse of conductor Michiel Haspeslagh, former members, young people from Clari Cantus, parents of young people unite in the children’s or youth choir and new faces join a new adult choir: Clari Cantores.
We deliberately talk about a choir family because there are many families singing across our choirs. Moreover, most of the members move from choir to choir as they age. In this way, these members sing together for many years and a close group of friends is created. The icing on the cake: the conductors of the choirs come from the same family: mother Ria Vanwing, daughter Karen Haspeslagh and son Michiel Haspeslagh.
Already in 2014, the ‘very young’ adult choir Clari Cantores was able to present itself to the loyal audience of the Cantus choirs on the occasion of the Celebration of the 25th anniversary of the choir family at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven.
In April 2015 at the Spring Concert ‘125 Spring Voices’ in the Leuven theater, Clari Cantores will once again be on stage alongside Clari Cantus and Clari Cantuli. In the same year, Clari Cantores, in addition to the three sister choirs the Cantulietjes, Clari Cantuli and Clari Cantus, presented a joint Christmas concert in the church of Vlierbeek.
In May 2016, Clari Cantores really stood on its own two feet for the first time: with the concert O dov’é donna in the chapel in Boven-Lo, the choir presented its first own production with a beautifully varied program, with music by Claude Debussy, among others. The tone has been set and the adult choir has emerged from its infancy.
In August 2016, a delegation from Clari Cantores will take part in a concert trip to Italy. There, together with the Clari Cantus youth choir and a special orchestra, they will perform Mozart’s Requiem in the beautiful St. Stefano Church of Aosta and at the Prarayer Refugio, a unique place high in the Italian Alps to perform Mozart’s Requiem. In November 2016 they will bring the requiem to their own country and perform it again in Merksplas.
In the autumn of 2016, Clari Cantores is working hard on the performance of the Missa Serena by Bruno De Soomer, father of several singers within the choir family. The mass will be recorded on CD by Clari Cantores on January 28, 2017 and performed for the public the following day on January 29 in the chapel of Keizerberg Abbey.
On March 26, 2017, Clari Cantores took part in the provincial tournament for the first time and achieved no less than 90% in the first division, with congratulations from the jury for the poetic interpretation of the music, musical dynamics and diction.
On the occasion of the commemoration of V-day and at the invitation of the city of Leuven, the entire adult choir Clari Cantores, together with the youth choir Clari Cantus, will perform Fauré’s Requiem in the Keizersberg chapel.
Clari Cantores concludes a beautifully filled choir year 2017 by performing, together with the choir Carmina from Meise and the Leuven orchestra Frascati, a performance of ‘Die Schöpfung’ by Joseph Haydn, all under the direction of conductor Michiel Haspeslagh. ‘Die Schöpfung’ will be performed in St. Peter’s Church in Jette, in the Church of Our Lady of Good Hope in Vilvoorde and on January 13, 2018 in the concert hall of the Lemmens Institute in Leuven.
On September 28, 2018, Clari Cantores will perform the concert ‘Strings Attached’, together with the Kaos Quartet, a young and extremely talented string quartet. Contemporary composers such as Whitacre, Chilcott, Van Steenberge, Høybye and Esenvalds are featured in a varied program composed in varying formations, ranging from a cappella to choir with string quartet.
On the occasion of Christmas that same year, Clari Cantores joins forces with children’s choir Clari Cantuli and youth choir Clari Cantus for a concert entitled ‘O little town of Bethlehem’. The program includes well-known British Carols and the compelling eight-part Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber.
In the autumn of 2019, Clari Cantores, in collaboration with Ataneres Ensemble, will present a program of baroque classics, including parts of Handel’s Messiah and the double-choir motet ‘Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf’ by J.S. Bach. The concert will be performed twice, in Wemmel and in Lommel.
In 2020, Clari Cantores registers for the Champions Competition of the World Choir Games, which would take place in Flanders that year. But the corona pandemic decides differently.
