With only their third CD Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix have just secured two of the awards at this year’s Klara-Muziekprijzen ceremony, held at the start of November in the group’s native Belgium.

Poissance d’amours – released by Glossa – was selected by the awards jury of the classical music radio station Klara for the best Flemish production of the year and also by the station’s listeners for the Public prize for 2008.

For Poissance d’amours Schmelzer and his ensemble turned back from the late medieval music of Johannes Ockeghem and Gilles Binchois – the composers represented on their first two Glossa CDs, Caput and Joye – to the High Middle Ages, to the music of monks, mystics and minstrels in 13th-century Brabant.

The programme was recorded in February of this year in a highly suitable location, that of the Dominican Church in Leuven (Schmelzer considers that some of the music for the programme may well have been originally performed in this church), with Manuel Mohino engineering and producing the recording.

The Klara team had previously arrived at a short list of 40 internationally-available CDs before voting for the winners of five categories.

Björn Schmelzer and members of the Antwerp-based ensemble were on hand at the Klara ceremony both to collect their two awards and also to give demonstrations of their award-winning talents.