This summer, Belgian violonist and composer Wouter Vandenabeele travels to the Balkans, Greece, South Italy, Catalonia, Andalusia and Galicia, searching for the melancholic soul in music. During three months he and other travel companions will reach out to local musicians and get in dialogue with minority groups.

Melancholy connects people throughout the ages and cultures. Its ambivalent nature is characteristic: sorrow accompanied by comfort or hope, pain accompanied by beauty or joy. In this Hiraeth project, we are therefore floating on the melancholy that can be found as an atmosphere in just about all musical cultures, but which is mainly characteristic of the southern European musical cultures (Saudade, Flamenco blues, Balkan music, etc.). This music refers to a bittersweet longing for something hopeful that is absent and can never be fully present.