Sander De Keere — The Manual Stop (Contius organ Sint-Michiels church)

PRACTICAL

➤ Wednesday 28.10 - 20:00
➤ Sint-Michielskerk, Naamsestraat 57, Leuven
➤ €16 / €12 (STUK card) / €8 (- 19 / KU Leuven Culture Card)
➤ Seated concert without bar, be on time, latecomers won’t be allowed to enter.

• Sander De Keere — The Manual Stop
(premiere)

Sander De Keere lives and breathes music. In addition to being a radio presenter and podcast creator at Klara (VRT), he has been working hard in recent years to establish himself as a composer of contemporary classical music. After his first EP Primitive Structures (W.E.R.F records, 2022) and the piano composition For Ruth Crawford - in honor of the American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger - Sander deliberately took a few years off to further develop his musical language.

In October 2026, Sander will return with the release of his new album The Manual Stop: the result of countless nights spent working on the new replica of a Baroque Contius organ from St. Catherine's Church in Wondelgem (Ghent). The organ's 1765 pipes and 27 registers breathe, click, swell, and pulsate like analog electronics, transforming the organ into an acoustic synthesizer from the pre-electric era.

With The Manual Stop, Sander De Keere pays a daring tribute to the craftsmanship of the instrument and an adventurous sonic experiment. The result is a compelling and idiosyncratic listening experience in which ancient resonances and progressive sound design meet. The Manual Stop bridges the sacred and the synthetic, with repetitive patterns, drones, and ethereal soundscapes that radically redefine our expectations of the pipe organ.

De Keere will perform his new album live for the first time in Leuven. He will adapt his compositions to the impressive Contius organ of St. Michael's Church and has also invited cellist Nina Vanhoenacker to join him during his concert.

Organ: Contius organ, Sint-Michielskerk (special thanks to Contius Foundation)

About the Contius organ

From 2018 to 2021, the Contius Foundation installed a Baroque Bach organ in the Sint-Michiel Vredeskerk in Leuven. The organ is a reconstruction of the instrument built by the 18th-century organ builder H.A. Contius in Liepaja (Latvia). According to organ experts, this Contius organ is one of the best organs in our country.

Since 2021, the Contius Foundation has been professionally active in the arts landscape, facilitating professional musical and cultural exchanges in and around the Contius organ. The added value of the Contius Foundation lies in the areas of education, social engagement and international cooperation, combined with an excellent and extensive artistic programme: these elements are brought together around no other organ in Flanders as they are around the Contius organ.