B’Rock Orchestra & Robin Verheyen

Who is Nerina? This is the question the award-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri asks in her poetry collection Il Quaderno di Nerina. The elusive Nerina seems to have escaped history and geography: from a nomadic standpoint, she writes about her existence between Rome, London, Kolkata and Boston, her connection to the sea and her relationships with her family and with words. With these poems as a starting point, the Belgian composer and jazz saxophonist Robin Verheyen questions his own identity – he also leads a ‘globetrotting’ life between Belgium, Paris, NYC, Senegal and Burgundy. In Il Quaderno di Nerina, Verheyen blends the colour of historical instruments with saxophone and voice, performed by mezzo-soprano Cristina Zavalloni. Led by Evgeny Sviridov, B’Rock sparks a dialogue with Purcell’s gripping Fantasies.