Jef Van Hoof memorial

Collage in memory of Jef Van Hoof on the Jef Van Hoofplein at the entrance of the municipal library.
It was founded on 12.06.1960 by the Flemish Tourist Association, in cooperation with the municipal administration. The Boechout architect Armand Segers drew the general design, sculptor Staf Van Sintjan and painter George Van Raemdonck, both also from Boechouten, made the plaque. Sculptor Albert Poels chiseled the grand sunken relief, in which he made the synthesis of the master's work.

Jef van Hoof was a composer and conductor. Born on 8 May 1886 in Antwerp. From 1926 he lived at the Labistratenhof or Spokenhof in Boechout. In 1933 he was co-founder of the Flemish National Song Festival. He died in 1959.

In 1909 his battle song Groeninghe, on a text by Guido Gezelle, was awarded by the Algemeen Nederlands Verbond and with the cantata Tycho Brahe he won the second Prize of Rome in 1911. In 1916 he became organist at St. Michael's Church in Antwerp and in 1925 harmony teacher at the Carillon School in Mechelen. Other awards followed, such as the Prize of the Province of Antwerp for his First Symphony in A (1957) and the Lodewijk Mortelmans Composition Prize (1958). From 1936 he taught at the Royal Flemish Conservatory in Antwerp, of which he was director from 1942 to 1944.

Leo.Benneke