Chamber Choir Furiant

Chamber Choir Furiant – Belgium

The Furiant Chamber Choir was founded by Steve De Veirman in September 1995 and quickly developed into a balanced ensemble performing at the highest level. The name ‘Furiant’ guarantees lively, energetic and expressive music, performed by powerful youthful voices. Primarily the choir aims at gathering a group of voices that are as homogeneous as possible. But Furiant also invests a lot of time and energy into the technical development of each individual – bringing in trained voice coaches when needed.

With the repertoire the choir tries to give an impression of the full scale of polyphonic musical literature. It aims at displaying the vibrancy of colour and expressions of chamber choir music, throughout different styles and decades. Recent works created by composers such as Eric Whitacre, Jake Runestad and Ola Gjeilo are also frequently performed.
The Chamberchoir partook several times in the Belgian ‘Choir of the Year’ competition, and was as such the finalist at the Lemmens Institute Concert in 2005, and semi-finalist at the Flagey Studio 4 in 2004.

Furiant also participated in other major projects such as a performance of the musical ‘West Side Story’, a stage production of ‘Amadeus’ and the ‘Ode Gand by Night’-edition of 2013 organized by the Ghent Festival of Flanders. In november 2014 Furiant hosted the Thai Suanplu Chorus in the Saint-Nicolas Church (in Ghent, and took part in the spectacle piece ‘1000 Voices for Peace’, in remembrance of the first World War, this in cooperation with the Festival of Flanders Brussels). In January 2016 Furiant promoted to the highest division of the East Flemish Provincial Choir Competition
In 2018 Furiant hosted the Barcelonean ‘Cor de Cambra de Granollers’ conducted by Josep Vila Jover. In return Furiant visited its colleagues last October and joined them into several concerts in Barcelona.

During the World Choir Games 2021 in Flanders this ambitious choir presented itself in the highest division, The Champions Competition, and won 2 golden medals in the categories Mixed Chamber Choir and Sacred Music! In 2022 the Chamber Choir participated in more international competitions and was a remarked guest at the Cantarode Fenstival and the IKV competition.

Steve de Veirman, Conductor

The Belgian choral conductor, Steve De Veirman, began his musical education in 1982 at the Muziekacademie Emiel Hullebroeck te Gentbrugge. He then followed higher music studies at the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven. He combined instrumental training in piano, cello, Baroque flutes and singing with theoretical and pedagogical skills. To become proficient in the choir direction, he took lessons with Florian Heyerick, Rudy Tas, Johan Van Bouwelen and Erik Van Nevel. He further specialized with conductor and composer Kurt Bikkembergs. His choir and singing experience was also enriched by singing along with projects from various professional choirs and ensembles such as Ex Tempore, Collegium Brugense, Capella di Voce, Goeyvaerts Con sort, Musa Horti and Psallentes.

Steve De Veirman conducted the children’s choir Papageno and the St.-Camilluskoor and spent three years at the musical helm of the Arenberg Kamerorkest in Leuven and the Gentse Schola Cantorum in in Gent. For five years he also directed the Volwassenenkoor Vokamando. In addition, he has also been the chief conductor of the renowned Cantabile-Gent choir since September 2011 and directed them to their last note in April 2017. Today he is still the conductor of the Jeugdorkest Forza Muzica, Kamerkoor Furiant, Jongerenkoor Furiakanti, Dameskoor Furiosa and Jeugdkoor Furiale.

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