On the occasion of the 10th edition of the Hide & Seek Festival taking place from August 17-23, 2025 in Brussels, Peter Van Rompaey, artistic director of Muziekpublique, reflects on a decade of musical discoveries in the capital’s most unusual venues.

How did the Hide & Seek Festival come about? Can you tell us the story behind this somewhat crazy idea of mixing traditional music with Brussels’ secret locations?

The Hide & Seek Festival programs traditional music that’s largely unknown to the general public. It was born from the desire to find new ways to reach audiences. When I was a student, I was already organizing concerts in unusual places like old laboratories. Ten years ago, I felt like bringing this approach back to life, and that’s how Hide & Seek was born.

The festival allows us to showcase Brussels in a different light and discover music we wouldn’t necessarily go out of our way to hear. The goal is to spark curiosity.

How have you seen the festival evolve since its first edition? In terms of audience, ambition, recognition, or operations?

Initially, the festival offered one concert per evening plus lunchtime concerts and the concept of guided tours. Since the pandemic, concerts have been doubled due to capacity and distancing restrictions. This format worked so well that we kept it.

In the early editions, concerts were acoustic and unamplified. Now, most concerts are amplified. This festival is really about the magic of a concert that sets up in two hours in a place not designed for it at all, then vanishes almost just as quickly.

Since 2023, we’ve had international programmers coming to discover our local artists. Today, the Hide & Seek Festival is a reliable fixture that our audience eagerly awaits. We’re delighted to see the same faces from concert to concert throughout the week. I sometimes hear that international festival organizers are even tempted to adopt the concept and develop it in their own countries.

How do you choose the artists and venues? Is there an artistic vision or common thread that guides each edition?

A good venue for the Hide & Seek Festival is a place where there usually aren’t concerts, a closed or rarely accessible space, somewhere you dream of discovering. It could be an old factory, or the Council of State like in this year’s program, which is a major Belgian institution.

Sometimes there’s a venue that pairs perfectly with an artist. And sometimes we enjoy creating contrasts. In 2023, we had the Mongolian group Tengerton at the STIB Jacques Brel depot. What was interesting about this combination was that all the group’s songs are about travel. So it was quite fitting to have them perform in a STIB depot, Brussels’ emblematic transportation hub.

© Mathieu Golinvaux

For this edition, it was also symbolic to give Palestinian music a venue dedicated to diplomacy. Les Petits Riens wanted a group that could speak to the great diversity of their staff and bring people together. When we programmed Jean-Didier Hoareau and Zinne Kabar with their festive maloya, it was obvious to match these artists with this venue. And then, sometimes, like all organizations that put on concerts, we adapt to artists’ availability, their tour schedules and the calendar of venues that host us.

This year, artists like Insingizi or the Christine Zayed Trio carry stories linked to exile, migration, and identity. How is the program built? Is it political?

The programming isn’t political in the sense that it’s not partisan. But we live in a society in motion and the artists we welcome carry important messages. Muziekpublique presents music that goes beyond mainstream currents, which is already a political stance in itself. Our association champions diversity and it seems natural to us to welcome artists who embody these values.

For example, on August 23 at 12:30 PM, we’ll have a concert by the group Alfaia that brings together Arab, Celtic and Iberian traditions, knowing that at certain periods there were tensions between these different peoples in the peninsula. Organizing a concert in Cyclo’s workshops (bike repair workshops) in the city center also carries a message for gentler mobility.

Christine Zayed will give a concert on August 18 at the Prague House. For this concert, it’s symbolic that the artist is a woman, because often in Arab music, instruments are played by men.

What impact do you think the festival has on Brussels audiences? In terms of discovery, connection to territory, social and cultural diversity?

The Hide & Seek Festival allows people to discover venues and artists, but also to immerse themselves in musical traditions. Less known to the general public, we have a whole showcase component with delegates who come to discover our homegrown artists. In our own way, we contribute to their visibility and that’s important.

This year, Radio Klara will come to record concerts that can then be broadcast on the European radio network. These are some of the festival’s impacts, but they’re hard to quantify.

What are the most memorable moments from these past ten years? Moments of emotion, pride, surprise… backstage or on stage?

In 2018, at Molenbeek cemetery we welcomed the Mongolian group Egschiglen. Their music is deeply connected to ancestors, it was a concert with a magical atmosphere. Since then, the group’s leader has passed away, so that event has an even more special flavor.

I also remember Duo Ruut in 2022 performing at Les Savonneries de Bruxelles. Traditional Estonian music with artists who went on to have great careers, including Womex (an international festival that allows artists from around the world to perform before an audience of professionals) and the United States.

For atmosphere, I’d say the Cuban group Septeto Santiaguero also in 2022 at the former National Bank printing house. I hope we’ll have a similar vibe with Jean-Didier Hoareau & Zinne Kabar on August 22 at the Petits Riens sorting center and with Son de Madera on August 23 at Stassart House.

A word about the 2025 edition? Any personal favorites?

As a personal favorite, I’d say the Son de Madera concert on August 23, a legendary Mexican group. I’d been wanting to program them for a long time. They’ll perform at Stassart House, a venue with a significant colonial history that needs to be discussed in Belgium and also the place where the first radio news broadcast was transmitted on November 1, 1926. A history-laden venue waiting to be fully discovered.

I’m also eagerly awaiting the August 22 concert by Jean-Didier Hoareau, nephew of the essential Danyèl Waro, an iconic figure in Réunion music and maloya.

I’m also excited to welcome Ananta Roosens and Kaito Winse on August 19. Ananta has incredible musicality, while Kaito, a Burkinabé griot, brings magic to every project he’s part of. I’m curious to discover the combination of their two worlds: sensitivity, finesse, experimentation on one side, versus raw energy and spontaneity on the other. And to top it all off, they’ll perform with one of our academy professors, Octave Komlan on calabash.

If you had to sum up the musical spirit of Hide & Seek Festival 2025 in three words, what would they be?

Discovery, engaged, festive.

How do you envision the next 10 years?

We hope the audience will suggest loads of places to us! Joking aside, so far we keep finding new magical venues despite the festival’s 10 years of existence. We haven’t exhausted Brussels yet.

I’d also like to create connections between academy artists and the festival with, for example, a workshop or performances that would bring together artists programmed at Hide & Seek and teachers from the Muziekpublique academy.