A Concert and A Guided Tour

After the Siberian temperatures, an almost balmy Sunday [March 11 and the UK Mothers’ Day to boot] arrived in time to add lustre to a Lovely Day Out. To Gent on the 9.33 slow train, it being a Sunday, where I was met by the owner of my flat and his wife at Gent St Pieter’s. Off we went to a fund-raising Concert for the Soroptimists, in the lovely Miry Concertzaal in Gent Conservatorium There, I learned that the core mission of the Soroptimists is to help women and children all over the world. I knew several people in the movement when I lived in Kent but assumed it was something like a female Rotary for professional women and had never dug deeper. A leaflet describes itself as 'Le Soroptimist International, une voix pour les femmes' and I like that. In Belgium alone it has 1660 members so, internationally, it is a force to be reckoned with.

The concert was marvellous, offering a programme of Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Dvorak, Smeets and Gershwin interpreted in lively and imaginative piano playing. One really didn’t want the music to stop! The pianists were a mother and daughter duo; Eliane Rodrigues from Argentina and her daughter who is half Belgium, Nina Smeets, brilliant pianists both. Eliane is much the more famous and she is also a composer, beginning composition as a precocious three year old, and giving her first public recital at five. She won a special prize at 18 in the Van Cliburn concourse and started teaching in Antwerp Conservatorium at age 20. But there have been shadows in her life, not apparent in her feisty and uninhibited public persona. Her daughter, Nina, was for a long time in a coma when she was three, and doctors had given up hope of her rescue but, no doubt as a last resort, the non-stop playing of her mother’s rendition of Mozart’s No. 12 concerto, eventually brought her round. Nina is now a most accomplished pianist and composer too.

A narrow channel added to give the sound of water near the 

main entrance.

Astonishingly, the 450 strong audience was treated to refreshments and ample opportunities to socialise, for the next hour after the concert. My hosts eventually drove us to their new home, still not entirely finished but stunning in its style. It is both a conversion and a rescue of a mediaeval Priory on the larger site of an Abbey complex, built originally in the tenth century, all near Oudenaard. The house itself had been empty and abandoned for perhaps twenty years and a huge amount of architectural planning, renovation, new-build additions and inner re-furbishment over the past four years, have resulted in a very desirable and highly individual home. I felt so lucky to be able to visit and view the innumerable small details that conserve authentic details while making a style statement. The modern additions like the spacious large glazed terrace at the back, merge seamlessly in because of the use of appropriate materials and the individual style of the contents, consistent throughout. This rescued Priory is an object lesson in conservation plus.

As I have read through the above, I have to admit that it does seem to have caught the breathless wonderment and admiration that characterises many a style interview about a famous person's private space. All I can say in self-defence is that the old Priory DOES hit the spot!!

One week after writing the above I discover that it was never published! I have had friends staying and gave scant thought to Other Things but here it is, at last. And after that balmy Sunday described above, came a little more snow and days of Siberian temperatures. However, nothing to match the icy white-out in many parts of the U.K.