Antwerp’s summer carillon series heads for a public-chosen finale

Antwerp

Place

Antwerp

City hosting the Beiaard Live summer carillon series.

Why it matters

City hosting the Beiaard Live summer carillon series.

About

Antwerp is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest municipality in Belgium by area at 208.22 km2 (80.39 sq mi). With a population of 565,039, it is the most populous municipality in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million people, the country's second-largest metropolitan area after Brussels.

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The finale follows a concert by Belgian guest carillonneur Tijl Stynen on 24 August. According to the museum’s published programme, Stynen translated film music including themes from Jurassic Park, The Godfather, James Bond, Wicked and Disney productions into the cathedral tower’s distinctive bronze sound. For residents, visitors and international communities in Antwerpen, the practical appeal is unusually simple: most listeners need neither a ticket nor specialist knowledge, only a reasonably quiet place within range of the bells.

The Monday-night series has run throughout July and August under the informal invitation to “break up your week on Monday”. Muziekmuseum Vleeshuis says city carillonneurs Janssens and Koen Van Assche have been joined by performers from Belgium and abroad, extending the repertoire far beyond conventional bell music. Earlier evenings moved from Bach and tango to Beethoven, Queen, classical favourites, love songs and electronic music.

That range is deliberate. On 20 July, Janssens placed Beethoven’s Für Elise alongside Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Clouseau, Blondie and Antwerp rapper Slongs. On 3 August, Belgian ensemble Furo Bells combined Jan Verheyen’s carillon with Cedric Honings’s guitar and electronic production by Joren Rubens. The museum described that appearance as the trio’s first joint performance, mixing dance, drum-and-bass, trance and synthpop with the cathedral bells.

Culture alderwoman Lien Van de Kelder framed the programme as proof that a rich Antwerp tradition can accommodate fresh combinations and a different theme each week. That municipal perspective treats experimentation as a way of keeping the instrument present in everyday city life, rather than preserving it as an object heard only on ceremonial occasions.

A heritage institution approaches the same balance from a longer horizon. UNESCO placed Belgium’s programme for safeguarding carillon culture on its Register of Good Safeguarding Practices in 2014. UNESCO says the initiative spans 76 Belgian cities and villages and stresses both the conservation of historic instruments and the creation of new arrangements, compositions and genres. The international dimension is therefore cultural rather than geopolitical: Belgium’s bell tradition has become a model shared with practitioners in some 30 countries.

Antwerp’s programme embodies both readings. Muziekmuseum Vleeshuis notes that tower music once helped shape the tastes of ordinary city residents, while the electronic collaborations and film arrangements test whether that civic instrument can still speak in a contemporary idiom. The concerts also keep the museum’s public role visible while its main Vleeshuis building is closed ahead of restoration work expected to begin in autumn 2026.

The principal city listening suggestions are Ruckersplaats, Bullinckplaats, Vlaeykensgang, Grote Markt, Groenplaats and Handschoenmarkt, although audibility depends on other events and ambient noise. The organised finale at Leonie Glassplein offers a clearer gathering point. The public-request deadline has passed, and the complete selected playlist had not been published by 26 August. The final question is therefore not whether the bells will ring, but which mixture of Mozart, pop and Antwerp favourites Janssens will send across the city on Monday night.