The Head of the Lion has Many Faces

scored for large symphonic orchestra 

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duration 7 minutes 

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The Head of the Lion Has Many Faces was written for the reopening of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, after a long period of closure and renovation. The commission invited the incorporation of the Flemish anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw into the composition.

The music takes the ‘head’ of the melody as its material and subjects it to a continuous process of transformation. Through modulation in every possible key, through stretching and compressing, the recognizable theme loses its singularity. Hymnic certainty gives way to a musical space in which differences can coexist side by side.

Just as the renovated museum seeks to be a place for everyone who lives in Antwerp and engages with art, regardless of background or belief, the music likewise celebrates diversity and inclusion. What is familiar is not rejected, but reimagined. Tradition appears not as a monument, but as material that is plural and open.

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'The Head of the Lion has Many Faces' was commissioned by KMSKA to open the new Museum on September 24, 2023 and was performed by orchestra La Passione in open air in front of the museum.