In Spring 2021 we were honoured to be invited to give a live concert in the fantastic acoustic of the Miry Concert Hall in the heart of the city of Ghent, Belgium. We chose a programme of South-American music which has stayed in our repertoire ever since.

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Heitor Villa-Lobos was perhaps the best-known South American composer of all time. This declaration of nocturnal love bears the title Melodia sentimental: Come and see the moon, that sleeps in the dark night (Acorda, vem ver la lua que dorme na noite escura).

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Jayme Ovalle's beautiful song Azulão calls to the bluebird (Azulão) as his companion (companheiro) to fly to his lost lover and lament their parting. The backlands (sertão) of Brazil are no longer the same without her.
 

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Kapuri is an exquisite Bolivian duet for voice & bass flute, recorded by Anna & Nathalie for Ensemble d'Atlántico. Kapuri is a light sigh in a song, her voice is a spell, speaking to me of loving. With the fleece of her sheep she begins to spin. The rainbow colours of the woven blanket that she carries on her back and the nectar of her mouth sooth my pain. Kapuri is a light, a song.​​​

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In Spring 2026, we asked the talented young film maker Klaas Bonnema to take Alfonsina y el Mar as his inspiration  to make his own specific film version of this timeless classic. He chose the Belgian coastline for his Tarkovsky-like interpretation, which could in fact be anywhere except, perhaps, South America. Anna, as Alfonsina, looks bewildered and lost as she wanders, alienated, through the streets, trying to find some reason not to walk into the sea. We try to stop her, but feel powerless . . .

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El Vito is a classic Spanish song by Fernando Obradors. The composer sets a rather wicked popular text to music in the form of a lively Andalusian dance. The singer prefers a young girl to an older one because she's cheaper to look after (soy tan pobre me voy a lo más barato). The song takes its name from St. Vitus, a Christian martyr whose name has come to be associated with dancing mania, or St. Vitus’ dance. This is appropriate enough in Obrador’s song, which gets progressively faster and faster . . . Recorded here live at our cd presentation concert.

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Ai, que linda moça from the cycle Seis Canciones Portuguesas by the Spanish Ernesto Halffter presents a delightfully sentimental description of a pretty shepherdess singing to herself (cantarolando) as she guides her flock (seu rebanho). She was and is beautiful (loira e engraçada), but now she's left me, laments the poet, and all is sadness and melancholy (tudo são tristezas e dor).