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The commissioned Belgian to compose a new chamber music piece for clarinet, piano and string quartet. Swerts took his inspiration from Guillaume Apollinaire's iconic collection (1911) (with wood engravings by Raoul Dufy), in which 26 animals are reviewed in short, witty emblem poems. The poem about the peacock, for example, goes as follows:Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble composer Piet SwertsLe Bestiaire

In spreading out his fan, this bird, Whose plumage drags on earth, I fear, Appears more lovely than before, But makes his derrière appear.The Peacock

Thematically, Le Bestiaire is a fitting counterpart to (1886) by , which also contains character sketches of "animals" (note: for Saint-Saens, "pianists" and "fossils" are also animals...). Piet Swerts rearranged Saint-Saens' original for (bass) clarinet, strings and piano.Le Carnaval des AnimauxCamille Saint-Saens

On occasion of the pending birth of Swerts’ Bestiaire, we intend to introduce the audience to the metier of…