HET BOURGONDISHE LEVEN

The world's largest Early Music Festival
Utrecht, 24 August/ 2 September

The Burgundy Lifestyle is the theme of 2018 Utrecht Early Music Festival. Burgundy’s court culture, in fact, played a leading role during the Renaissance; Franco-Flemish polyphony blossomed, gradually becoming the model for European art music. Another great source of inspiration for this edition of the Festival is Huizinga’s Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, (The Autumn of the Middle Ages): our story inevitably concerns death as an essential part of life.
The term ‘Burgundian’ has also be interpreted in its broader sense of pertaining to the good life, a kind of chic, quality, luxury, wealth way of living, concepts that are clearly visible in the new Festival image and graphic layouts.

LETTERING: truly inspired by Burgundy landscapes, Rococo furnitures and decorations, it also reminds to Renaissance style scripts, ornaments and frontispieces. It has a stylish and classy appeal, which exactly translates into image that kind of “good and luxury lifestyle” the Festival theme (partly) refers to.
BACKGROUND: A textile detail that comes from Jan Van Eyck Madonna di Lucca. Its goldish particulars, the decorations of the carpet, all those magnificent cloack folds… every single detail of the paintings seems to describe, perfectly, the luxury of Burgundy lifestyle of that age.
UNEXPECTED ELEMENTS: as in 2017 edition, the new brochure layout features some surprising and unexpected elements. Fruits, flowers, details describing Burgundy nature, are taken from paintings and engraves and have been used both as images and silhouettes. They’re clearly connected with the culture of death as inevitably part of life.

More on the Festival and Organisatie Oude Muziek