Elsewhere in Hollands College: CHVE / Gwenifer Raymond (sold out)

Gwenifer Raymond

Gwenifer Raymond is a guitarist from Wales. She draws her inspiration from pre-war blues from the Appalachian Mountains and from the American "primitive" guitar music of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, among others. Her guitar strumming is mysterious and moody one moment, wild and grungy the next. Raymond is a must-see live performer.

CHVE

Colin H. van Eeckhout is mainly known as the vocalist of Belgian post-metal collective Amenra. His ability to connect with listeners, and to guide them on a transformative path to healing made Amenra a worldwide phenomenon. With his solo moniker CHVE, Colin gets to tell his own story – one that aims to take the listener deep within themselves, to tap into something primal that dwells in us all.

For Colin, CHVE represents the opportunity for full creative freedom: to experiment with sound without any limitations, and to embrace the vulnerability that comes with creating alone. The hypnotic music of CHVE is almost mind-altering, as the droning repetitions of a medieval instrument - the hurdy gurdy -, various percussion instruments and effects meld with the soft otherworldliness of Colin’s voice. Though not in the metal realm, the music contains a weight and heaviness on a par with that of Amenra.

Colin began writing his solo music 14 years ago, but he didn’t set out with that specific intention in mind – it happened organically. After buying a hurdy gurdy with Amenra guitarist Lennart Bossu, Colin began experimenting with the sounds it could make. Before he knew it, he had made almost enough music for an album.

CHVE will present its new album in the marvelous setting of Hollands College. An opportunity to experience this monument of Belgian music in an intimate setting.

About the location: Hollands College

At the Hollands College, founded in the 17th century to train priest students from the diocese of Haarlem, you can admire, among other things, a beautiful chapel and a beautifully preserved library. Both the chapel and the winter garden of the college regularly host concerts.

COLLEGE FOR PRIEST STUDENTS

In 1617, at the ‘Veemerckt’ or ‘Verkensmerckte’ (today Father Damien Square), a large sixteenth-century residence of the Leuven noble family Uten Liemingen was transformed into a college for training priest students from the diocese of Haarlem. The first president of this college was Cornelius Jansenius. He is best known as the founder of Jansenism, the reform movement within Catholicism vigorously opposed by the Pope. In the garden of the Hollands College, then called ‘Pulcheria’, Jansenius had one of the two towers of a twelfth-century watergate on the Dijle converted into his study and dormitory.

THE GIRLS' SCHOOL OF CICERCULE PARIDAENS

In the mid-eighteenth century, the college was followed by an extension and extensive remodeling by leading architect Jacques Antoine Hustin. Among other things, the chapel and library date from that time.

After the dissolution of the Old University by the French occupying forces in 1897, most university colleges were soon sold off publicly, but at the Hollands College this did not happen until more than a decade later. At the beginning of the 19th century, the college thus came into the hands of Cicercule Paridaens, who established her girls' school there as well as the Congregation of Daughters of Mary, which she founded. The nuns once again thoroughly renovated the college. They had a wing added and also extended the chapel.

At the end of the 20th century, lay people took over the administration of the Paridaens girls' school from the nuns.

METAFORUM

From 2008, the college came into the hands of KU Leuven. It had then just become a protected monument. Today, the university makes this unique heritage - with its beautiful chapel, library and lecture theatre, its stately salons and its charming winter garden - available, among other things, for the meetings, debates and musical activities of the think tank Metaforum.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Cornelius Jansenius wrote his famous work Augustinus (1640) in the so-called Jansenius Tower at the back of the Hollands College garden.
• Hollands College is one of the best-preserved colleges of the Old University and possesses the only preserved interior of a college library, with bookcases dating back to the eighteenth century.