The University Foundation organizes lots of activities for the members of the Club. Below you can see short reviews of some past activities. A more complete list can be seen on the French or Dutch web pages.
The debate "The global and local environment: thoughts on the eve of the world wide meeting on climate change" was introduced by mr. Patrick Van Haute, Director of the OECD Council and Executive Committee Secretariat.
The speaker, from a family of Belgian diplomates, has a very important function at the OECD, which regroups the industrializd countries. In this way he is familiar with the options considered with respect to the general environment, energy, and climate change. He discussed the OCDE reports concerning the Belgian situations and the challenges our federal and regional governments ahve to cope with.
Concert with M. Thomas REIF, laureate of the Queen Elisabeth competition for violin 2015, with mrs. Daria Marshinina, piano, followed by a walking cocktail with special Belgian dishes.
Programme :
Sonate nr 4, opus 23 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonate for violon and piano by César Franck
The debate was introduced by Professor Vincent Blondel, rector of UCL (in French).
The disclosures of the world wide activities of the NSA and the possibilities of the social media have shown the threats to the citizens and their privacy, usually characterized by « Big data, Big business, Big Brother ». The speaker, a specilist of complex netowrks, will discuss the state of the art of the technology and the possibilities big data offer to companies and the challenges to the citizens and the politicians.
Love and sorrow ignited – belcanto romance on the beach
’How good it is to rest a while under a tree when the sun is hot and sultry.’ These words, the first in the libretto, immediately set the tone: let’s prolong the summer with the help of the warm breeze that Damiano Michieletto and his team let waft through this score. This is a production that does justice to the freshness which Donizetti, who dominated Italian opera in the 1830s with numerous new works, injected into the melodramma genre. His L’Elisir d’amore is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of 19th century opera buffa. This work has everything: melodic inventiveness to match the character portraits, contrast, and keenly felt pathos alongside comic irony. And, of course, the elixir of love also works its magic: not only on Nemorino, who wants to win Adina for himself, Tristan-style, but also on audiences, which have loved this opera ever since its first performance in 1832.
Lecture by Minister Koen Geens on the reform of the Belgian judicial system : "Are there sufficient financial means or are the main problems elsewhere?", followed by a walking cocktail.
For our yearly activity of garden tours we selected : Groentheater, Sobieskipark, Tuinen van de bloemist. The tour will be gudied by Prof. Jan Rammeloo, honorary director of the " Plantentuin van Meise", professor emeritus at Antwerp University.
12 h: lunch in the restaurant van het Atomium - Garden tour in the afternoon.
Lunch debate “Les Minorités chrétiennes au Moyen-Orient” with Prof. Bernard Coulie, honorary rector of UC Louvain.
The presentation can be downloaded by means of this link.
Un ballo in maschera - Giuseppe Verdi
"È scherzo od è follia ?’ A joke or pure madness, or is one really looking into the future in Un Ballo in maschera ? This work is a masterpiece of variety, of the fusion of differing stylistic elements, a work that relates first to the French opera comique and then to the Italian dramatic style, with characters who are among the most powerful Verdi ever created. The censor forced Verdi to switch from the original historical context – the murder of the Swedish king during a masked ball in 1792 – to the Boston of the 17th century, but his human and political message is no less forceful. The director Alex Ollé and his company La Fura dels Baus set the action in the near future, in the atmosphere of Orwell’s 1984, where power is totalitarian, while all the characters wear their masks throughout the performance in a bankrupt society founded on hypocrisy.
Lunch at the University Foundation, followed by a short lecture on "Bibliophily and the Art of the Book", an introduction to the exhibition “Op reis in mijn bibiotheek - Voyages dans ma bibliothèque” and a guided tour of the exhibition in the Royal Library with Charles Prion Pansius, Vice-chairman of "The Royal Belgian Association of Bibliophiles and Iconophiles" .
Third activity in the cycle of lunch debates on the theme «A World of Cities» which the University Foundation organises, in collaboration with "la Fondation pour l’environnement urbain Pierre Laconte", for the members of the Foundation and also for a larger public (faculties, economic, social and cultural organisations, ...).
This debate was introduced by Paola Vigano.
Paola Vigano teaches at Harvard university and the university of Venice. With the recently deceased Bernardo Secchi she realized numerous urbanistic development projects in the world, also in Belgium (development plan for Antwerp, the project "SpoorNoord", the design of the city center of Kortrijk, and a vison on Brussels 2040). Se will dwell on the main ideas which underly her projects, her personal views on urbanism, as well as other ilmportant international views such as «Internationale Bau Austellungen»