Full Circle upcoming events

[Culture] Book Club: The Nights Are Quiet in Teheran, by Shida Bazyar (15/10/2026)

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Full Circle Book Club
hosted by Eleonora Balsano

The Nights Are Quiet in Teheran
by Shida Bazyar

Culture | Thurs 15th Oct | 7:00-8:30 pm

Monthly meet up to discuss a great read, along with drinks & good company.

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The book club begins at 7pm.

‘The pages … pulse with solidarities and betrayal, with heartache and humor.” ― the judges of The International Booker Prize 2026

Set across four decades, from 1979 to 2009, this is a polyphonic novel of one family’s flight from and return to Iran. It is about revolution, oppression, resistance, and the absolute desire for freedom.

1979. Behzad, a young communist revolutionary, fights with his friends for a new order after the Shah’s expulsion. He tells of sparking hope, of clandestine political actions, and of how he finds the love of his life in the courageous, intelligent Nahid.

1989. Nahid lives her new life in West Germany with Behzad. With their young children, they spend hour after hour in front of the radio, hoping for news from others who went into hiding after the mullahs came to power.

1999. Laleh returns to Iran with her mother, Nahid. Between beauty rituals and family secrets, she gets to know a Tehran that hardly matches her childhood memories.

2009. Laleh’s brother Mo is more concerned with a friend’s heartbreak than with student demonstrations in Germany. But then the Green Revolution breaks out in Iran and turns the world upside down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shida Bazyar studied writing in Germany, and worked in youth education for many years. Born in 1988, she is the author of the novels The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran and Sisters in Arms. The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran has won the Blogger Literary Award, Ulla Hahn Prize, and Uwe Johnson Prize. The English translation was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

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ADDITIONAL INFO


FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar open with snacks	Small (~12)	Available on request

[Music] Brussels Muzieque Concert: PIANO QUARTETS (18/10/2026)

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 17:00:00 GMT

PIANO QUARTETS

Brussels Muzieque

Music / Sun 18 Oct / 7pm

Join Brussels Muzieque for an evening of Romantic piano-quartet masterpieces.

The ensemble brings together four artists of the Brussels chamber scene: Lithuanian pianist Monika Dars, laureate of the Joseph Darche Piano Prize and chamber-music teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Mons; Kazakh violinist Meruert Karmenova, a sought-after soloist across Europe and recently appointed concertmaster in Antwerp; Polish violist Monika Młynarczyk, co-principal viola of La Monnaie / De Munt; and cellist Eduardo Tonietto, founder and artistic director of Brussels Muzieque, active internationally as a chamber musician.

Their programme spans the early and high Romantic style: Gustav Mahler’s youthful Piano Quartet, already charged with symphonic imagination; the lyrical Andante from Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60; and Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 47, performed in full — a cornerstone of the repertoire, rich in dialogue and warmth

*Dinner available after the concert, please book in advance

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ADDITIONAL INFO


FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCES
Bar & snacks & light food	60-80 people	Available

[Music] Gypsy-jazz Double bill: Django Chutney & Trio Qu'a Trois (22/10/2026)

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Gypsy-Jazz: Django Chutney & Trio Qu'a Trois

Music / Thurs 22nd Oct / 8pm

*Doors & bar open 7pm. Concert starts at 8pm.

Back by popular demand, Brighton based gypsy-jazz trio Django Chutney are coming back to blow away our Full Circle audience — and this time they're sharing the stage with Trio Qu'a Trois, with the two bands taking it in turns throughout the night.

Their combination part vocal harmonies, huge repertoire that draws from so many eras and genres of the 20th century, virtuoso guitar show-offs, and ridiculous sense of fun and musical adventure has helped them secure fans in the jazz world and across the spectrum alike - all ages and all musical tasted will find something to enjoy in Django Chutney & Trio Qu'a Trois hugely entertaining and energetic performances.

Drawing from Chutney's repertoire, along with more modern tunes, 20's blues, and the very-possible chance of some Black Sabbath, Django Chutney steamroller the audience with a forceful jazz-guitar sound that amazes and delights in equal measure.

Trading sets across the evening, Trio Qu'a Trois bring their own distinct flavour to the Full Circle stage - a trio built around guitar, helicon, saxophone and banjo, blending gypsy-jazz swing with a playfully unconventional instrumentation that sets them apart.

THE BAND "Django Chutney"

Jed Cutler – Guitar & Vocals

Tom Bailey – Double Bass & Vocals

Ben Mack – Guitar & Vocals

THE BAND "Trio Qu'a Trois"

Gilles Kremer – Guitar & Helicon

Augustin Dive (Gus) – Saxophone

Philippe Quewet (Max) – Banjo & Double bass

KEY LINKS

Find them on:

Instagram: @django.chutney

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ADDITIONAL INFO


FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	WHEELCHAIR
Bar & snacks & light food	Large (>50)	Available

[Culture] Non-fiction Book Club: Nation of Strangers, by Ece Temelkuran (14/11/2026)

Sat, 14 Nov 2026 14:30:00 GMT

Full Circle NON-FICTION Book Club
hosted by ISABELLA GIURELLI

Nation of Strangers
by Ece Temelkuran

Culture | Sat 14th Nov | 3:30 - 5 pm

NEW! A regular non-fiction book club focused on how individuals and communities navigate, survive, and resist unjust systems.

*Doors open at 3 pm. The book club begins at 3.30 pm.

‘the most urgent and necessary book of our times, for our times' ― Michael Morpurgo

"Dear stranger. Are you home? Do you feel at home? For how much longer?"

Across the world the number of refugees and exiles, the dispossessed and displaced, the politically homeless and the economically excluded is growing. In the decade since she left her own home, Ece Temelkuran has been a political Cassandra, warning those convinced it couldn’t happen in their country that fascism is coming.

Now, as oppression spreads and temperatures rise—as we face competing crises and learn, again and again, that no institution is so concrete it can’t turn to dust, and no home is too strong to be destroyed—she has written Nation of Strangers: a series of letters from one stranger to another.

Politically attuned and deeply personal, this extraordinary, heartening correspondence is a gift to treasure in uncertain times. As poetic as it is precise, it is a book for anyone who feels alienated by an ever-more monstrous world. It shows how, as we all become strangers, our home will depend on the strength we find with one another.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish writer, political thinker and journalist. Her work appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Frankfurter Allgemeine, La Stampa, Der Spiegel and Le Monde Diplomatique among other prominent international media outlets. During her twenty-year career as a journalist, and before she lost her job due to political oppression, she was twice recognized as Turkey’s most read political columnist. She has lived in Lebanon, Tunisia and France, and was a visiting fellow at St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. Her books, both fiction and non-fiction, have been published and translated in several countries. She is on the advisory board of Progressive International and Democracy Next.

In 2019, she published the internationally acclaimed nonfiction book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, about the rise of right-wing populism and how it operates. In 2021-2023 she was a fellow at The New Institute, Hamburg, working on a project "A New Vocabulary for 21st Century Progressives. In 2023, she received the El Mundo International Journalism Awards in the Freedom of the Press category for her body of work. Temelkuran was longlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction for Nation of Strangers.

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ADDITIONAL INFO


FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar open with snacks	Small (~10)	Available on request

[Culture] Book Club: She who remains, by Rene Karabash (19/11/2026)

Thu, 19 Nov 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Full Circle Book Club
hosted by Eleonora Balsano

She Who Remains
by Rene Karabash

Culture | Thurs 19th Nov | 7:00-8:30 pm

Monthly meet up to discuss a great read, along with drinks & good company.

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The book club begins at 7pm.

High in the Accursed Mountains, in an Albanian village ruled by the ancient laws of the Kanun, Bekja escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man. Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most. Years later, as Bekija – now Matija – tells their story to a visiting journalist, long-buried truths come to light, along with the realisation of all that might have been.

She Who Remains - a dark and poetic novel about identity, gender, love, freedom, and societal norms - was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rene Karabash (born Irena Ivanova) is a Bulgarian poet, writer, screenwriter, actor and playwright. She has won multiple awards for her work, including several Best Actress awards for her role in the film Godless. Her debut novel, She Who Remains, was awarded the 2019 Elias Canetti Prize, Bulgaria’s most prestigious literary award. It has been translated into over a dozen languages, and a film, adapted by the author, is set to be released in 2026. The English language edition was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026. Karabash is also the author of the collection Omar’s Letters to His Future Wife, and is working on her second novel.

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ADDITIONAL INFO


FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar open with snacks	Small (~12)	Available on request

[Ideas] Ideas Festival 2026 WEEKEND or DAY Pass (20/11/2026)

Fri, 20 Nov 2026 17:00:00 GMT

FESTIVAL OF IDEAS 2026

"CONNECTION"

Fri 20th - Sat 21st - Sun 22nd Nov

You already know us, you know what we do, and that by coming YOU make this a great event!

BOOK YOUR WEEKEND PASS NOW
Get free access to all events the whole weekend!
One Day Pass available too.

Check out the programme here

This year's Ideas Festival explores connection, questioning what truly holds us together in a hyper-connected yet disconnecting world.
Since 2013, Full Circle's 3-day in-house festival brings thinkers together for talks, conversations, and communal reflection.

A crew of local hosts brings nourishing and entertaining activities into the mix. The festival is designed for depth, with unhurried spaces for ideas and bonds to form.

Expect talks, workshops, live music, art, books, food
and a pinch of unexpteced.

You already know us, you know what we do, and that the next one will be even better than the last one!

[Ideas Festival] Vernissage: Connection Art Show (20/11/2026)

Fri, 20 Nov 2026 17:00:00 GMT

VERNISSAGE

' CONNECTION '

with emerging and established artists

Art / Fri 20 Nov / 6-9:30 pm

Join us for the launch of Connection Art Show

"Connection" is an exhibition about the threads that bind us to one another, to place, to memory, and to the world around us.

Creative expression unlocks and reveals a world of literal, abstract, personal, or political interpretations: Intimacy and relationship, community and belonging, ancestry and heritage, identity and the self, ecology and the body, technology and its paradox of closeness and distance...

Artists in this vernissage invite us to reflect on what it means to be truly connected, offering new ways of seeing, thinking and being through countless forms.

FREE ENTRY

Drinks available from our bar

[Ideas Festival] Art/Music - Strung Together: Violin, Composer, Art (21/11/2026)

Sat, 21 Nov 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Art & Music with Peter Sheppard Skaerved & Nigel Clarke

Ideas Festival / Sat 21st Nov / 3.15 - 4.30 pm

What happens when a violinist picks up a paintbrush, and composers pick up their pens? Revel in a show like no other, where sound, image and object cross into one.

Grammy-nominated violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved has long been celebrated for his championing of new music. Less widely known is his parallel life as a painter. In this special performance, he brings the two worlds together, presenting music written by some of today's leading composers in direct response to his visual work. The programme features violin miniatures by Robert Saxton, Sadie Harrison, and other distinguished composers. Each piece is a small, concentrated musical portrait: a colour, a gesture, a mood caught on canvas and translated into sound. As the music unfolds, projections of the paintings that inspired it will accompany the performance.

A new musical creation also premieres at this event. Brussels-based composer Nigel Clarke has composed a short new work based on several objects proposed by the festival's audience. Objects that somehow mean connection to each of us. Everyday things become the seeds of music, and you can now hear what they have grown into.

GET THE WEEKEND OR DAY PASS

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Peter Sheppard Skaerved is 'one of the finest living exponents of the violin’ (Gramophone Magazine September 2026). A renowned violinist, chamber musician and researcher known for his pioneering approach to the music of the past and of our own time. He has released over 90 albums of solo and chamber music, performed as a soloist in over 30 countries and has had morethan 400 works written for him by composers such as Judith Weir, Michael Finnissy and Hans Werner Henze. A prolific recording artist, both as a soloist and as leader of the Kreutzer Quartet, he is also the recipient of numerous awards and a former Grammy Award nominee. Peter is the only living violinist to have performed on the violins of Ole Bull, Joachim, Paganini and Viotti. He is also Viotti Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music (UK) and was recently named Honorary Professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in recognition of his contribution to music research and the positive impact his work has had on the industry.

Nigel Clarke studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Paul Patterson, where he was awarded the Academy’s highest distinction, the Queen’s Commendation for Excellence. Clarke has previously held positions as Young Composer in Residence at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Composition and Contemporary Music Tutor at the Royal Academy of Music, London, Head of Composition at the London College of Music and Media, Visiting Tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music, Associate Composer to the Young Concert Artists Trust, Black Dyke Band, the Band of HM Grenadier Guards, Brass Band Buizingen, Middle Tennessee State University Bands, Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall and International Composer-in-Association to the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. Clarke has also co-written film soundtracks to:Jinnah, The Little Vampire, The Little Polar Bear, The Thief Lord, Baseline, & Willand in 2006 was a co-nominee at `The World Soundtrack Awards’ in the `Discovery of the Year’ category. In 2008 Clarke was awarded the title of Doctor of Musical Arts from University of Salford.

[Ideas Festival] Louisa Toxvaerd Munch: The Politics of Disconnection (21/11/2026)

Sat, 21 Nov 2026 17:30:00 GMT

ThE POLITICS OF DISCONNECTION

A Salon with Louisa Toxvaerd Munch

Ideas Festival / Sat 21st Nov / 6.30pm - 8pm

*Hours might change*

Why do people turn to the past when the future feels unbearable? And why does that turn so often lean authoritarian?

Critical theorist and ‘pyrotechnic thinker’ Dr. Louisa Toxværd Munch has spent her career examining the conditions that let fascism take root – and disconnection is at the heart of it. Nostalgia isn't really about the past, it's what happens when people can no longer imagine a shared future together. Isolation doesn't just make us lonelier, it makes us easier to manipulate, easier to divide, and more susceptible to the manufactured ignorance that authoritarian movements depend on.

Louisa makes the case that the way out is relational, not individual. Critical thinking, resistance cannot be done alone. We build these together - in classrooms, in communities, in (disappearing) third spaces, and in the rooms where people still gather to question power.

GET THE WEEKEND OR DAY PASS

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Louisa Toxvaerd Munch is a Danish critical theorist, writer, and educator whose work examines nostalgia, historical consciousness, and the political conditions enabling the resurgence of the far right. A PhD researcher and teacher at the University of Warwick, she brings critical theory to a broad public audience through writing, lectures, and social media. Drawing on Arendt, hooks, and Freire, she champions education as a democratic safeguard against manufactured ignorance. She is the author of the forthcoming Glitch: How to Think in a Time of Monsters (Allen Lane/Penguin), which reframes societal breakdowns as sites of resistance and collective agency.

GOOD READS

Glitch: How to Think in a Time of Monsters (forthcoming, Allen Lane/Penguin).

[Ideas Festival] Music: Suzette & Jasper Huysentruyt (21/11/2026)

Sat, 21 Nov 2026 20:00:00 GMT

SINGER GUNDRUN ROSE (SUZETTE)
& PIANIST JASPER HUYSENTRUYT

Music Concert

Ideas Festival / Sat 20th Nov / 9-10 pm

Revel in a unique concert blending timeless jazz standards, French chansons, bossa nova, and original compositions and lyrics by Suzette & Jasper.

Their collaboration reflects artistic refinement and a shared passion for music with depth and character.

GET THE WEEKEND OR DAY PASS

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ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

Gudrun Roos, also known by her musical alter ego Suzette, is distinguished by her poetic presence and warm, jazzy voice. She trained in jazz vocals at the Conservatory of Ghent and has since performed with various ensembles and in a wide range of musical theater projects. Under the pseudonym Suzette, she has developed her own repertoire, where the lyricism of French chanson, the subtle sounds of bossa nova, and the refined nuances of jazz beautifully converge.

By her side is pianist and composer Jasper Huysentruyt, trained in both classical music and jazz. After fourteen years of professional activity in Chile, where he performed with his trio at all major jazz festivals and released several albums, he returned to Belgium. Jasper has built a strong reputation in both the Latin American and international jazz scenes, with concerts spanning from the Atacama Desert to Patagonia, and albums that subtly weave together nature, classical, and jazz influences. His playing is praised for its versatility and expressive subtlety.

Eighteen years ago, singer Gudrun Roos and pianist Jasper Huysentruyt first took the stage together. Starting September 2025, they will once again present a series of joint concerts.

LINKS

Suzette Music

[Ideas Festival] Creative Writing Workshop: Writing Fiction in a Second Language, with Eleonora Balsano (22/11/2026)

Sun, 22 Nov 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Creative Writing Workshop

FAMILY LEXICON:
WRITING FICTION IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

with Eleonora Balsano

Ideas Festival / Sun 22nd Nov / 11 am - 1 pm

Many multilingual people never try writing fiction because they think they aren't allowed to, since their vocabulary is too limited, their grammar isn't perfect and they’ve heard at some point in their lives that ‘real writers only write in their mother tongue’. None of this is true!

Many of the best novels of recent decades were written by people using a language they learned as adults. In this workshop we'll start from the words we all carry from childhood, the nicknames, family expressions and invented words that only make sense at home, and we'll use them as material for writing in the language we use now. Through short exercises, participants will see that writing in a second language can make their prose more precise and more personal, and that what they see as a limitation is often what makes their writing interesting.

If you speak more than one language and have always wanted to write fiction, whatever your level of experience, this is for you.

GET THE WEEKEND OR DAY PASS

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ABOUT THE HOST

Eleonora Balsano is an Italian-born polyglot journalist and writer based in Brussels. She is currently working on a dystopian novel and is the host of Chosen Tongue, a podcast on translingual writers and their journeys. She is also the co-founder of the European Writers Salon, a travelling salon for writers across Europe to connect online and in person. Eleonora's short fiction in English has appeared in Portland Review, Fictive Dream, Reflex Fiction, Janus Literary, JMWW Journal, and elsewhere. In 2023, she was longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 and in 2021 she was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. She is a reader for Longleaf Review and WestWord.

[Culture] Book Club: Beginning Middle End, by Valeria Luiselli (10/12/2026)

Thu, 10 Dec 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Full Circle Book Club
hosted by Eleonora Balsano

Beginning Middle End
by Valeria Luiselli

Culture | Thurs 10th Dec | 7:00-8:30 pm

Monthly meet up to discuss a great read, along with drinks & good company.

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The book club begins at 7pm.

‘Inventive, brilliant, playful, and transporting' ― by Katie Kitamura, author of Audition

A mother and a daughter take off on a road trip after the collapse of a marriage. Their journey begins in Sicily during a summer of rapidly-changing winds, volcanic rumbles and sudden tempests. How do you begin again, the mother wonders, if you got the beginning wrong? The trip soon becomes a quest for origins – not just to the familial past across continents, languages and generations, but also further back to a mythical and even geological past.

With her daughter coming into her own and her mother showing signs of dementia, the narrator finds herself confronting the primary questions of life: How do stories shape our children’s imaginations? How do we situate ourselves deeply in the world while accepting our transience in it? How are a family’s memories made and what happens when they disappear?

A road novel, a mother-daughter story, a mystery, Beginning Middle End is a shapeshifting novel that offers an exhilarating testament to the power and instability of the stories we hold most dear.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in Costa Rica, South Korea, South Africa and India. She is an acclaimed award-winning author and the Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College Her previous novel, Lost Children Archive, was an international critical and commercial success. It was a New York Times 10 Best Books of 2019, won the Rathbone Folio Prize 2020, the Dublin Award 2021, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Booker Prize 2019 among others. In 2019 she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant for “challenging conventional notions of authorship in fiction, essays, and inventive hybrids of the two that pose profound questions about the various ways we piece together stories and document the lives of others.” Her work is published in more than thirty languages.

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ADDITIONAL INFO


FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar open with snacks	Small (~10-15)	Available on request

Full Circle upcoming events

[Culture] Book Club: The Nights Are Quiet in Teheran, by Shida Bazyar (15/10/2026)

Full Circle Book Club hosted by Eleonora Balsano

[Music] Brussels Muzieque Concert: PIANO QUARTETS (18/10/2026)

[Music] Gypsy-jazz Double bill: Django Chutney & Trio Qu'a Trois (22/10/2026)

KEY LINKS

[Culture] Non-fiction Book Club: Nation of Strangers, by Ece Temelkuran (14/11/2026)

Full Circle NON-FICTION Book Club hosted by ISABELLA GIURELLI

[Culture] Book Club: She who remains, by Rene Karabash (19/11/2026)

Full Circle Book Club hosted by Eleonora Balsano

[Ideas] Ideas Festival 2026 WEEKEND or DAY Pass (20/11/2026)

FESTIVAL OF IDEAS 2026

"CONNECTION"

Fri 20th - Sat 21st - Sun 22nd Nov

Check out the programme here

[Ideas Festival] Vernissage: Connection Art Show (20/11/2026)

VERNISSAGE

' CONNECTION '

with emerging and established artists

Art / Fri 20 Nov / 6-9:30 pm

[Ideas Festival] Art/Music - Strung Together: Violin, Composer, Art (21/11/2026)

strung together VIOLIN, COMPOSER, ART

Art & Music with Peter Sheppard Skaerved & Nigel Clarke

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

[Ideas Festival] Louisa Toxvaerd Munch: The Politics of Disconnection (21/11/2026)

ThE POLITICS OF DISCONNECTION

A Salon with Louisa Toxvaerd Munch

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

[Ideas Festival] Music: Suzette & Jasper Huysentruyt (21/11/2026)

SINGER GUNDRUN ROSE (SUZETTE) & PIANIST JASPER HUYSENTRUYT

Music Concert

Ideas Festival / Sat 20th Nov / 9-10 pm

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

[Ideas Festival] Creative Writing Workshop: Writing Fiction in a Second Language, with Eleonora Balsano (22/11/2026)

Creative Writing Workshop

ABOUT THE HOST

[Culture] Book Club: Beginning Middle End, by Valeria Luiselli (10/12/2026)

Full Circle Book Club hosted by Eleonora Balsano

Full Circle Book Club
hosted by Eleonora Balsano

Full Circle NON-FICTION Book Club
hosted by ISABELLA GIURELLI

Full Circle Book Club
hosted by Eleonora Balsano

strung together
VIOLIN, COMPOSER, ART

SINGER GUNDRUN ROSE (SUZETTE)
& PIANIST JASPER HUYSENTRUYT

Full Circle Book Club
hosted by Eleonora Balsano