Hana Chapter of Belgium #248 Belgium

Exhibition　　Open to the Public　　　Ikenobo, Ohara, Sogetsu
11 – 13 October 2024
Four musical compositions in four venues guide ikebana arrangements, both group and individual, always in harmony with each other. ‘Friendship Through Flowers’ became true.
Philip Glass plays Mad Rush – Mad Rush is a minimalist composition for solo piano. The name Philip Glass brings to mind glass and transparency. This is the guiding principle for the Ikebana compositions. The music is built on a repetitive melodic line of single notes that gradually rise and fall. Branches and flowers repeat ascending and descending. The music evokes softness, simplicity and zen.
We work with light materials with beautiful curves and soft colours.
Carl Orff, Carmina Burana – Carmina Burana is a powerful and compelling work. The opening song ‘O Fortuna’ sings of the unpredictability of fate. ‘Floret Silva’ is about the forest blooming while the narrator is saddened by the loss of his beloved. A wide range of feelings express themselves in contrasts in the music: powerful/soft, loud/silent, slow/fast. Striking is the powerful beginning of both pieces, followed by an alternation of dynamic and soft music. The threatening beginning gives us the feeling of being in a dark old forest. The Ikebana arrangements incorporate dead wood as a basis for the now sometimes dramatic then again hushed and soft atmospheric setting.
Joep Beving, Ab Ovo – Ab Ovo means ‘From the Egg’, from the beginning.
We hear music that grows. The story develops in a chronological order, a traditional form of storytelling that we recognise in Japanese renga. A poem to which something is added each time. We answer with an ikebana renga. We start with a simple arrangement. Each person adds an element. The story grows, the base remains and ends in a great work. As in music, there is structure and a sense of dynamics and harmony, the delicate play between freedom and structure.
Michio Miyagi, Haru No Umi – Miyagi based this composition on the image he had of the sea before he lost his eyesight at the age of eight. Water plays a leading role in our ikebana arrangements. Grasses make it light, suggesting waves, ebb and flow, movement, space, tranquillity, openness.
The opening of the exhibition was musically graced by Nozomi Kanda and attended by His Excellency, the Japanese Ambassador and Mrs. Mikami.
At the same time, ikebanists worldwide drew inspiration from music. Their creations are bundled in the photobook, ‘Music Inspires Ikebana’, published by the Art Book Foundation (https://www.stichtingkunstboek.com).