Toasaves means “home land” in the Antwerp dialect, the cosmopolitan city where Wannes grew up and came into contact with all kinds of cultures, leaving a mark on his musical quest.

The ensemble brings together artists with different backrounds and travels through ancient music (trecento, Flemish polyphony, Sephardic music) and Eastern music (Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan). Toasaves will present their album in April 2022.

Musicians on tour :

• Tristan Driessens (lutes, concept, arrangments, artistic direction)
• Raphaël De Cock (vocals, bagpipes, Jew’s harp)
• Harald Bauweraerts (hurdy-gurdy)
• Miriam Encinas (vielle, dilruba, medieval flutes, frame drums)

“With a lot of creativity, openness, and using all the human affinities within the group, we can do some really fabulous things” (Tristan) Tristan Driessens discovered the ûd (oriental lute) through Sephardic and Arab-Andalusian music. From 2009 to 2012, he stayed in Istanbul to improve with his master Necati Çelik. Back in Belgium, he obtained a master’s degree in Turkish ûd at the LUCA School of Arts and in Musicology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Today, he is recognized in Belgium as one of the main references in ûd and Turkish classical music (makam). He collaborates with Tcha Limberger, Derya Türkan, Kudsi Erguner and Emre Gültekin, and he is the artistic director of Ensemble Lâmekân and Refugees for Refugees. His other projects are Tristan Driessen’s Soolmaan Quintet, Seyir Trio, La Compagnie d’Elias.

Raphael De Cock is a multi-instrumentalist, singer in various traditional styles, and is part of Belgian and internationals musical projects. With Remi Decker he co-founded Griff, a band in which he plays numerous bagpipes and flutes. In 2009 he formed the duo Nadisuna with Vladiswar Nadishana. He sings and plays the gaita (Galician bagpipe) in the ensembles Neboa and A Contrabanda. With the trio Osuna (Emre Gültekin and Thomas Baeté), he plays the Siberian zither (chatkhan) and does throat singing. He joins in with the Irish-Scandinavian project Northern Lights and organizes multi-ethnical workshops with Waira in schools. Actually, he was invited by Graindelavoix to join the Belgian-Italian vocal project Muntagna Nera, and Melancholia.

Harald Bauweraerts is a musical jack of all trades. In addition to playing the electro-acoustic hurdy-gurdy, he is enthusiastic about all sorts of analog synthesizers, effects, percussions and sequencers. Harald strives to achieve a beautiful and harmonious symbiosis between the analog and numeric world, between acoustic and electronic, and between light and dark. Through the ages, from one culture to another.

Achievements: Lais, Embrun, Trio Pilartz/Gielen/Bauweraraerts, Eurosong, Eriksson/Delqroix, Orgamusa, Aedo, Beatball, Woodshakes, Dansa Del Sol, Harald,…

Miriam Encinas grew up in a family of musicians: «Els Trobadors» and «L’Arc en el Cel». Her innate musicality combines the fresh perspective of a performer raised in a traditional music environment with the rigor and precision of her academic training. She studied the recorder with Sara Parés at the Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona. Later she studied early music with : Pedro Memelsdorff, Christian Curnyn, Pia Elsdorfer, and percussion with Pedro Estevan. In 2001, she began studying Viola de Gamba with Cristian Sala and since 2013 Dilruba and Afghan music with Daud Khan Sadozai. As a professional musician, she is a member and has collaborated with: Evo, Mos Azimans, Via Artis Konsor, Joi de Trobar, l’Ham de Foc, Ensemble l’Albera, …